RELIABILITY; Q1 Discuss research on reconstructive memory.
Brewer and Treyens (1981): Procedure (DRAWING condition):
Participants had to draw the objects they remembered in an outline of the office they were given.
Brewer and Treyens (1981): Procedure (RECALL condition):
Participants were asked to write a detailed description of all the objects they could remember from the office they were in (shape, size, color, etc.). They also had to complete a verbal recognition test during this condition.
Direct Response:
Reconstructive memory, best described as the theory that highlights the possible interference of schemas in memory recall (to formulate a slightly distorted verion of the event as it aligns), as well as the notion of having our mind "fill in the gaps." Extensive research has been done, such as Bartlett and Brewer and Treyens
Brewer and Treyens (1981): Procedure (VERBAL RECOGNITION condition):
Researchers read off a list of objects and the participants had to confirm whether or not it was in the office.
Brewer and Treyens (1981): FINDINGS
Thus, it was found that the schema plays an important role in the encoding and retrieval of memory.
Bartlett (1932) Aim
To investigate how the memory of a story is impacted by prior knowledge, specifically in a cultural context.
Brewer and Treyens (1981): AIM
To study the role of the schema in the encoding and retrieval of memory.
Relevant terms: Scripts
When people talk about how things function. Scripts are also behavioral patterns that we acquire via interacting with the environment.
Relevant terms: Schema
mental representations that are derived from prior experience and knowledge.
Relevant terms: Reconstructive memory
the theory that memory is accessed in a "mosaic" of individual memories that must be pieced together→ this then allows the possibility of false memories/ "intruder memories" altering the validity of the memory
Relevent Terms: Misinformation Effect
when misleading information is provided which holds the capacity to alter ones memory
Brewer and Treyens (1981) Evaluation: STRENGTHS
●Confirms the schema theory. ●Did a questionnaire with students to identify schema-congruent objects in an office.
Brewer and Treyens (1981) Evaluation: LIMITATIONS
●Ethical concern of deception as participants were not informed of the true aim of the study. But this was necessary to avoid demand characteristics. ●Cannot fully determine the schema of the participant prior to the experiment. ●Doesn't explain why some remembered an object and others didn't.
Bartlett (1932) Evaluation: LIMITATIONS
●Experiment was not well standardized(time intervals were not recorded therefore not easily replicable for other researchers) ●Low reliability due to irreplaceability ●No IV was manipulated to observe the impact on the DV ●Some of his methods are considered to not be scientific
Bartlett (1932) Evaluation: STRENGTHS
●Has several applications and explains many real-life situations. ●In spite of the fact that it was carried out in a laboratory, it has high ecological validity.
Bartlett (1932) Results/Findings
●No notable differences between the way that the story was recalled by the groups. ●The story became shortened after the continuous reproduction of the story. ●The story became more conventional, meaning the participants changed some of the concepts to more familiar ones that could be assimilated into their culture. ●There were three types of distortion in the reproduction: the story was changed to fit the cultural background of the British, the story was shortened because some information was left out, and the order of the story was changed so that the participants would be more familiar with it. ●They also added emotions of their own to the story. The general theme of the legend was maintained, but many of the events that were perceived as foreign were changed to fit their understanding.
Bartlett (1932) Procedure
●Participants allocated were British and were told a Native American legend. ●The story included names and concepts specific to the culture that were unfamiliar to the participants. ●One group had to do a serial reproduction to another person, while the other did repeated reproduction of the story over a short period of time and then over an extended period of time.
Brewer and Treyens (1981): RESULTS
●Participants asked to recall through either drawing or writing demonstrated a better accuracy with objects conventional to an office, that fit their schema of an office. Any objects that were incongruent with an office were usually not recalled. ●Whereas with the verbal recognition condition, they were more likely to recall unconventional objects. They also had a higher rate of remembering objects that were expected for an office but omitted from the room. ●The researchers also found that in the drawing and recall condition, the participants changed the nature of the objects to fit their schema.
Brewer and Treyens (1981): PROCEDURE
●Participants were over 80 university psychology students. ●They were each put into a room designed to look like an office and they decorated it with objects that are usually found in offices. ●They also put objects that were unconventional to offices and omitted some types of objects that would be typical to an office. ●They were asked to wait in this office while the researcher made sure the previous participant had finished the experiment, unaware that the experiment had actually started. ●After half a minute the participants were brought into another room and asked to recall anything they could from the office. ●Then they completed a questionnaire that asked if they knew they'd be tested or not. Over 90% answered no.
Critical thinking:
●research is often low in ecological validity ●there are ethical concerns about instilling false memories ●the research has been applied to courtrooms ●not all types of memory appear to be open to distortion ●the process of "accessing schema" cannot be observed.
