Bartlett's War of The Ghosts Study

• Aim

  To see if memory is reconstructed when recalling an unfamiliar story
• Method

  The War of the Ghosts story was read by one participant and recalled after 15 minutes. This process was repeated with other participants
• Results

  Participants changed the story to fit cultural expectations. For example the word canoe was often changed to boat.
• Conclusion

  We use our cultural expectations to reconstruct memory
• Weakness


  Bartlett analysed the results himself, so we cannot fully trust the conclusion
• Weakness


  Lacks validity as the task was unusual and therefore may not reflect everyday memory processes
• Weakness


  The participants were told that the accuracy of their recall wasn't important - which may have affected the results