Bartlett's War of the Ghosts Study (1932)

• What was the aim of Bartletts study?

  To investigate how memory is reconstructed when asked to recall something repeatedly and to investigate how cultural background could lead to distortion of memory when a story was recalled.
• What did he ask the participants do?

  Reproduce an unfamiliar story they had read
• What did he find the participants did?

  Found that people changed the story to fit into their existing knowledge
• What was his hypothesis?

  People store and retrieve information according to expectations formed by cultural schemas.
• What technique did this study use?

  Serial reproduction- where participants hear a story and are told to reproduce it after a short time
• What nationality were the participants?

  British
• What story did he tell them?

  A Native American legend called 'The War of the Ghosts'
• After how long was the first participant asked to reproduce the story?

  15 minutes
• What did he do after this?

  He showed the new version of the story to another participant who was also asked to repeat the story 15 minutes later. This was repeated several times, each time using the newest version of the story
• What were the results?

  He found that participants changed the story as they tried to remember it, interpreting it within their own social and cultural frames of reference
• What is the nance of this process?

  Distortion
• What were the 3 processes of distortion he found took place?

  Assimilation, levelling and sharpening
• What is assimilation?

  When a story of memory becomes more consistent with an individerals own cultural expectations.
• What is levelling?


  When a story becomes shorter each time it is retold as participants omit information viewed as unimportant
• What is sharpening?


  When individual's change the order of a story to make sense of it, using terms more familiar to their culture.
• What was the conclusion?

  Memory is constructed and reconstructed to fit with the individual's own experience.
• What does realistic research in memory studies reflect?

  How we use memory in everyday life
• Why is real-world application a strength of memory research?

  It explains problems with eyewitness testimony
• What is a weakness of the memory study regarding control?

  Lacks set standards for recalling information
• How did Gauld and Stephenson (1967) contribute to the understanding of memory recall?

  They showed lack of instructions impacts results
• What potential bias exists in Bartlett's interpretation of results?

  Subjectivity as he already believed recall would be affected by
• Why might the unusual story used in the study be a weakness?

  It may not reflect everyday memory processes
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of Bartlett's memory study?

  Strengths:

  • Realistic research reflects everyday memory
  • Real-world application explains eyewitness issues

  
  

  Weaknesses:

  • Lacks control over recall conditions
  • Biased results due to subjective interpretation
  • Unusual story may not represent typical memory