Reconstructive Memory (Barlett, 1932)

Reconstructive Memory (Barlett, 1932)

1. Description

   • Bartlett believed memory was changeable and affected by experience
     • It was reconstructed when remembering due to expectations and schemas
     • More like a jigsaw than a video player
     • Past and current experiences affect how you interpret and remember new information
   • Bransford (1979)
     • Participants were given a piece of text. When told to recall it they gave information which wasn't in the original text
       • E.g. glass breaking
       • They said what they expected
   • "Portrait of a Man"
     • Bartlett showed people an image of a shield titled "portrait of a man"
       • When ppts were told to redraw the shield and pass it on, he found it slowly turned into a face
         • This showed that titles affected our memory
       • Did the same with an image of an owl and labelling it "cat"
   • It is an active process of confabulation
     • "Filling in the gaps"
     • Using schemas and stereotypes
   • Rationalisation
     • Memory changing so it makes sense to us
     • E.g. war of the ghosts
   • Schema
     • Mental structures or scripts which represent something
       • A packet of information
     • They give us shortcuts to navigating and helping us identify things
     • Loftus and Mackworth (1978)
       • Believed schematas free up cognitive processing power

2. Support

   • Bransford (1979)
   • Rorschach ink blots
   • War of the Ghosts (Bartlett, 1932)
     • Was rationalised and westernised
       • e.g. "canoe" became "boat"
       • Became shorter (300+ words to 180)
     • Native American Story
   • Chartier (1997)
     • Eyewitness testimony is vague and witnesses tent to "fill in the gaps" (confabulate) to make it make sense (rationalise)
   • Loftus and Palmer
     • Verbs used in a question influence the answer
     • Showed ppts video of a car accident
       • "How fast were the cars going when they ___?"
         • Words like smashed, contacted, bumped, collided etc were used
       • Asked "Did you see broken glass?"
         • Those who were asked questions with more violent words (e.g. smashed) said they saw broken glass
   • Allport and Postman (1945)
     • "Was the black or white man carrying the knife?"
       • White participants remembered it as the black man carrying the knife
   • Carli (1999)
     • When retelling a story about rape, ppts described the rapist as threatening before the rape happened

3. Conflict / Criticism

   • Wynn and Logie (1998)
     • People still remembered stories in detail even if some were lost
       • Asked psych students to retell stories
         • Realistic stories were better remembered
           • Flashbulb memories aren't affected

4. Other

   • WMM
   • MSM
   • Episodic and Semantic

5. Usefulness

   • Can't trust eyewitness testimony in a court setting
   • Descriptive
   • Doesn't say where in the brain

6. Testability

   • Lab research

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