reconstructive memory

• Perception - Bartlett devised a series of experiments to test memory for shapes and objects and he found that participant often assigned verbal labels to the objects they saw and that these labels often shaped the representation of the object drawn afterwards.
• Bartlett concluded that perception of shapes and objects determined how they are remembered
• Imaging - Bartlett did tests on imaging using ink blots on paper and asked ppnts to describe what they imaged in the pattern they saw
• Imaging - The descriptions that were given of the ink blots were largely determined by the individuals own interests and experiences
• effort after meaning


  trying to connect a stimulus with with some knowledge or experience already possessed
• Schema theory suggests that we have schemas which are mental frameworks or structures used to organise information about people places events etc. These schemas influence how we perceive and remember things as well as influencing how we behave towards them.
• perception is not just a passive process of receiving an image and interpreting it but an active construction of what we think or see using prior knowledge to guide the judgement
• Remembering - Bartlett did a study using a culturally unfamiliar folk tale called the 'war of the ghosts' that lacked rational story order and had a dramatic nature as he wanted to see how the ppnts would perceive and image the story
• remembering - Bartlett found that the ppnts changed the story so that it was more familiar, logical and coherent to their culture
• 'the war of the ghosts' - each ppnt read the story twice and repeated reproduction was used to test the effect of time on recall.
• 'the war of the ghosts' - twenty ppnts recalled the story after several minuets, weeks, months and years
• 'the war of the ghosts' - Bartlett found that the story became considerably shortened, the phrases used reflected modern concepts and the story became a more coherent form
• 'the war of the ghosts' - objects within the story were made more familiar for example, canoe was changed to boat and seal hunting changed to fishing
• Bartlett concluded that memory is reconstructed each time it is recalled