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How well can Barlett's reconstructive memory including schema theory,…
How well can Barlett's reconstructive memory including schema theory, can explain inaccuracy in human memory?
Schemas
Our memory is grouped into categories called schemas. Memory makes use of schemas to organise things. When we recall an event, our schemas tell us what it supposed to happen. The schemas might fill the gaps in our memory (confabulation) and even put pressure on our mind to remember things in a way that in with the schema, removing or changing details.
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Sometimes assimilate information, changing our schemas to fit what we have learned
Sometimes we accommodate new information, changing our memories to keep our schemas intact and unchanged.
THE WAR OF THE GHOSTS
Barlett showed 20 students a Native American ghost story (The War of the Ghosts" which had unusual features. He asked them to read it then recall it on several occasions after a few hours, day weeks or even years - a technique called serial reproduction. Barlett compared how the recalled versions of the story differed from the original.
Participants shortened the story when they reproduced it, from 330 words to 180 words, with the shortest reproduction happening after the longest gap (two years).
Participants also confabulated details, changing unfamiliar parts of the story to familiar ideas in line with their schemas: canoes and paddles became boats and oars, hunting seals became fishing.
Participants rationalised the story, coming up with explanations for baffling parts of the story. For example, in alter reproductions, participants missed out the "ghosts" and just described a battle between Native American tribes
Barlett didn't use many experiment controls, asking participants to reproduce the story whenever was convenient. He bumped into one student in the street two years later and asked her to reprocue The War of the Ghosts there and then. The change in the stories were also down to his own subjective opinion.
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