Reconstructive memory - ERQ

Question 1

Argument of leading questions

Answer 1

Another reason why memories can become contaminated is biased questioning. Since our memories aren’t perfect, we often fill in missing information with our “best guess”. And our “best guess” can be influenced by a multitude of factors, including the expectations and suggestions of people around us.

Question 2

Study for leading questions

Answer 2

Loftus and Palmer

Question 3

Aim of Loftus and Palmer

Answer 3

Investigate how leading questions can influence eyewitness memory

Question 4

Procedure of Loftus and Palmer

Answer 4

The study was carried out on American students, who were shown a video of a car crash
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The students were randomly divided into groups, and each group was asked a slightly different question regarding the speed of the cars at the time of the accident. One group was asked “How fast were the cars going when they smashed each other?”, while for other groups, the word smashed was replaced by either hit, collided, or bumped
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In a follow-up experiment, participants were also asked if they had seen broken glass

Question 5

Findings of Loftus and Palmer

Answer 5

Participants estimate that the cars were travelling at a significantly higher speed when the question involved the word smashed.
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Significantly more participants also reported seeing broken glass when the question involved the word smashed (in reality, there was none)

Question 6

Conclusion of Loftus and Palmer

Answer 6

Leading questions can alter memory of an event
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This may be because the word “smashed” is associated with severe accidents, suggesting higher speeds and broken glass. Associated with schema theory

Question 7

Evaluation of Loftus and Palmer

Answer 7

A well-controlled laboratory experiment, demonstrating a causal relationship between the independent variable (the verb in the leading question) and the dependent variables (speed estimate and whether broken glass was reported)
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Participants were all American university students, so the findings may not apply to other cultures or age groups. In particular, the students who took part in this experiment may have not had much driving experience. Perhaps more experienced drivers would be less susceptible to leading questions regarding car speed
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This experiment took place in a laboratory, and the speed estimates carried no real-life significance. Therefore, participants may not have been particularly motivated to be accurate. It is possible that someone who had seen an accident in real life would take greater care to report an accurate accident speed to the police

Question 8

How can Loftus and Palmer’s findings be explained by Bartlett’s view of memory as an active reconstructive process?

Answer 8

The verbs used in the various conditions activated slightly different schemas which influenced the speed estimates.

In this study, information was received after witnessing the accidentresearchers used aleading question.

Thus after the accident was reconstructed in the participant’s mind, the schema that were influenced by the leading question relating to the different verbs associated with speech explains how reconstructive memory works.

Question 9

What did Bartlett argue?

Answer 9

Memory is unreliable due to it being reconstructive. Used his theory of schema and study ‘War of the Ghosts’ to show the inaccuracy of memory due to it changing due to our framework

Question 10

Bartlett study aim

Answer 10

Investigate how cultural schemas can influence memory

Question 11

Bartlett procedure

Answer 11

British participants read a Native American fold story called “War of the Ghosts” twice, then asked to reproduce it from memory soon after, as well as on a later date. (On another variation of the study, participants told the story to someone else, who then had to remember the story and write it down)
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The content and style of the story was unfamiliar to the British readers, as it was not written according to the storytelling conventions of English literature

Question 12

Bartlett findings

Answer 12

When the participants recalled the story, the length of the story became shorter, and the story became more conventional. Unusual details (such as the unfamiliar names, or the revelation that the warriors were actually ghosts) were left out or distorted (for instance, some participants remembered “boats” instead of the unfamiliar “canoes”)
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No matter how much the recollection of the story differed from the original, it remained a coherent, completestory. This suggests that participants tried to rememberthe story as a whole, rather than trying to memorise specific details individually

Question 13

Bartlett conclusion

Answer 13

Participants found it difficult to remember the “War of the Ghosts” because the story does not fit any of our cultural schemas. It is neither a typical horror story or war story, and hence it is difficult to relate to our existing knowledge of the world
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Cultural schemas can lead to memory distortions, as we try to “fit” the new information to our existing schemas
We reconstruct memories depending on our schemas and previous memories

Question 14

Bartlett evaluation

Answer 14

This study supports the hypothesis that schemas can lead to distorted or false memories
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As this study took place a long time ago (1932), the conventions of modern Psychological research had yet to be developed. For instance, participants were not given standardised instructions, suggesting that the procedure was not carefully controlled.
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There is debate over theecological validityof this study. Some may argue that trying to memorise a story is an artificial task, which has questionable relevance for real life. On the other hand, we are often exposed to information second hand, through the telling of family and friends, which is not unlike trying to remember a story.

Question 15

What is reconstructive memory?

Answer 15

An explanation of how fragments of stored information are reassembled during recall, and the gaps are filled in by our expectations and beliefs to produce a coherent narrative.

The reconstruction principle states that remembering the past occurs in the context of the present.

When we try to recover a memory, we begin with information supplied by the retrieval cue, combine this with what we can recover from the memory trace, and then fill in the gaps.

We may make inferences based our expectations, beliefs and prejudices, or we may simply turn to our fund of general knowledge.

Question 16

Study that is highly naturalistic

Answer 16

Yuille and Cutshall

Question 17

Question over a highly naturalistic study for reconstructive memory

Answer 17

We could be dealing with a separate memory mechanism (flashbulb memory) that overrides reconstructive memory.

Question 18

Aim of Yuille and Cutshall

Answer 18

To investigate whether eyewitness accounts get distorted as a function of misleading plot event information in a naturalistic setting.

Question 19

Procedure of Yuille and Cutshall

Answer 19

After a real life robbery, where the owner untied and killed the robber. The witnesses were interviewed by police and four months later, they were interviewed again but with some having leading questions and misleading information and others not.

Question 20

Results

Answer 20

Misleading questions had very little effect on recall. Participants were able to accurately recall a large number of details.

Question 21

The two potential explanations for Yuille and Cutshall results

Answer 21

Reconstructive memory is a phenomenon that is only found in artificial conditions of laboratory experiment.

The study actually tapped into a different memory phenomenon called flashbulb memory. It occurs when the witnessed events accompanied by a strong emotional experience, so memory of the event gets ‘imprinted’ with a high degree of accuracy.

Question 22

Pros of Yuille and Cutshall

Answer 22

This is a field study that looks at a real incident with real eyewitnesses. It therefore has strong validity, which laboratory experiments which had been previously used to look at testimony lack.

Great care was taken when counting the details from the real incident to make sure that the witnesses’ testimonies did not alter that which really happened, and this scoring procedure allowed for reliable findings.

The scoring procedure also produced quantitative data from quantitative data, which requires no subjective interpretation and is easier to base conclusion upon.

Question 23

Cons

Answer 23

The study lacks generalisability as this was one off incident and a field study and the researchers themselves have suggested that this may be a case of flashbulb memory (which suggests that certain events are remembered in more detail and more permanently, explaining how those who are more involved in the even remembered more details correctly and are found to be more reliable.

There were some weak points in the scoring procedure which was set up, such as with a question based on age: the thief was actually 35 years of age, and when asked to estimate the age, most eyewitnesses said he looked as though he was in his early 20s - which was marked as an inaccurate memory, even though he really did look that age.

Question 24

What is meant by reconstructive memory?

Answer 24

It is based on the idea that memories are not saved complete, coherent wholes

Retrieval of memory is influence by our perception, our beliefs, past experience, cultural factors and the context in which we are recalling the information

Schema influence what we encode and what we retrieve from memory

Question 25

Issue with reconstructive memory being an active process

Answer 25

An issue with this is that our memory can become distorted by post-event information which is information about an event that is provided after the event already occurred.

Question 26

Role of schema theory in reconstructive memory

Answer 26

Schema influence what we encode and what we retrieve from memory. Therefore our recalling is always an active process.

Question 27

Implication of Yuille and Cutshall on reconstructive memory

Answer 27

his study therefore puts the whole reconstructive memory theory into question as it casts doubts about in which situations does reconstructive memory actually function.