Reconstructive Memory (Bartlett, 1932)

Question 1

Schemas

Answer 1

Categories that our memory is grouped into, a mental representation of info about a specific event or object

Question 2

Assimilation is

Answer 2

changing our schemas to fit what we have learned, add new info

Question 3

Accommodating new info involves changing our memories to keep our schemas intact and unchanged by levelling and sharpening…

Answer 3

levelling being when you downplay details and sharpening being when you exaggerate details

Question 4

Confabulation involves using our schemas to

Answer 4

fill in the gaps in our memory and even put pressure on our mind to remember things in a way that fits in with the schema, removing or changing details.

Question 5

Memory is not a

Answer 5

tape recorder

Question 6

Memory is not perfectly formed, perfectly encoded and then

Answer 6

perfectly retrieved

Question 7

A memory that is retrieved is

Answer 7

unlikely to be the same as the original

Question 8

We use previous knowledge/experiences to interpret

Answer 8

info to be stores and to actively reconstruct memories to be recalled

Question 9

Every schema has

Answer 9

fixed and variable information

Question 10

Fixed info?

Answer 10

Things that are definite

Question 11

Variable info?

Answer 11

Things that may change

Question 12

Perception affects memory, it is not passive, it is an active

Answer 12

construction of what we think we see using prior knowledge to guide judgement.

Question 13

Rationalisation is when you

Answer 13

make something make sense

Question 14

Bartlett’s ‘War of the Ghost’ showed

Answer 14

how memory is changed due to the process of rationalisation and confabulation - hunting seals became fishing

Question 15

A strength of reconstructive memory is that it can be tested

Answer 15

by experimental methods because the independent variable can be operationalised and measured

Question 16

The theory is useful for police and juries because

Answer 16

memory of eyewitnesses may not be reliable which they now know and therefore they know not to solely rely on it meaning people may not get wrongly convicted

Question 17

(strength) Loftus and Palmer (1974) found that leading questions can influence the estimate of speed among eyewitnesses where

Answer 17

Different speeds of a car crash were given according to different wording of the question (hit/bumped/smashed/collided/contacted) smashed = 41mph, contacted = 32mph

Question 18

Although a weakness is that Steyvers and Hemmer (2012) found that in a real context without manipulated material,

Answer 18

schematic recall can be very accurate and the experimental conditions of some research deliberately cause errors