reconstructive memory Bartlett 1973

Question 1

what did Bartlett say about memory?

Answer 1

it is not like a tape recorder. it is not perfectly formed, encoded and retrieved.
- it is unlikely that when old memories are retrieved they are going to be exactly the same as the original.

Question 2

what impacts on how we remember things?

Answer 2

our personal perceptions, which may be based on previous life events or situation.

Question 3

what is meant by confabulation?

Answer 3

making up or adding bits where there is gaps in a memory in order to make sense of it.

Question 4

what is meant by rationalisation?

Answer 4

making sense of something

Question 5

what is schemata?

Answer 5

schemata are parcels of stored knowledge / mental representations of information about a specific event / object. they provide people with expectations and rules about what to do, like a script.

Question 6

how is it though reconstructive memories work?

Answer 6

• we store fragments of the original story in the LTM
• at the time of recall we fill in the gaps using our schema’s
• the story we then tell is the reconstructed version of the original story.

Question 7

how does bartlett himself support this?

Answer 7

the war of the ghosts study where people were told an old tale and then had to tell it back from memory.
the results showed that certain words had been changed due to the participants having gaps and wanting the story to make sense.