Reconstructive memory/ schema

• Rationalisation

  The story became more consistent with the participants’ own cultural expectations - that is, details were unconsciously changed to fit the norms of British culture. 
• Confabulation

  New information was added in to fill in a memory so that it makes sense (to help fill gaps) e.g. adding emotion
• Levelling

  The story also became shorter with each retelling as participants omitted information which was seen as not important. (330 words to 180 words)
• Memory is reconstructed each time it is recalled It is rarely accurate and prone to distortion, rationalisation, and simplification
• • Memory is an active process
• • Memory is influenced by various other cognitive processes 
• • Memory is not an exact copy of the experience it is often altered with elements going missing or being distorted 
• • memory shouldn’t be divided up into constituent parts and treated as independent from other functioning. Memory should be studied in a way to capture the relationship between memory and other cognitive processes 
• Memory is constructed through interaction with our environment and social context
• Schema

  a mental framework of beliefs and expectations that influence cognitive processing
• Schemas change overtime, they develop in complexity with experience of the world until adults eventually develop a mental representation for everything  
• schemas help

  organise and interpret information And prevent us from becoming overwhelmed when processing a lot of information 
• They can alter information so that it becomes consistent with our previous experience and beliefs enabling us to process information quickly 
• With schemas we are able to fill gaps in our memory’s so that they make sense  
• According to Bartlett's reconstructive theory of memory, memories are not reproductions, they are reconstructions because memory is an active process. We store memories as fragments of information, when we try to recall something the fragments are pieced together to build a meaningful whole that makes sense. This is a theory of elaborate memory recall and means that memories are not completely accurate records of what happened because memories are influenced by various other cognitive processes.
• Elements of a memory can go missing or the memory can become distorted. There are three types of memory distortion. Levelling – Leaving parts of the story out. Confabulation – Adding to the story to make sense of it. Rationalisation – changing the story to become more consistent with own schemas
• Schemas are useful because they prevent us from becoming overwhelmed by processing lots of information quickly acting as a mental short-cut. To do this the information is altered to be consistent with our previous experiences. However this can lead to perceptual errors as schemas may distort our interpretations of sensory information. At recall schemas are used to fill in the gaps of memories which can lead to mistakes.

   
• Schemas are a mental framework of beliefs and expectations that influence cognitive processing. Schemas change over time, they develop in complexity with experience of the world until adults eventually develop a mental representation for everything.