Bartlett (1932)

Uses: Schema, reconstructive memory

AIM:

To investigate how the memory of a story is affected by previous knowledge.

Method:

Experiment

PROCEDURE:

  • All British participants, story was filled with unknown knowledge and words

  • Split into two groups, one group did repeated reproduction, where participants heard the story and were told to reproduce it after a short time and then to do so again repeatedly over a period of days, weeks, months or years. The second group was told to use serial reproduction, in which they had to recall the story and repeat it to another person.

  • He found there were no significant difference between the two groups when recalling the story.

 

MEMORY IS RECONSTRUCTIVE AND IS OPEN TO ERROR, THEY WILL MAKE MISTAKES AND THESE MISTAKES WILL ASSIMILATE INTO THEIR CULTURAL SCHEMA.

 

RESULTS:

 Bartlett found that there was no significant difference between the way that the groups recalled the story. Bartlett found that participants in both conditions changed the story as they tried to remember it - a process called distortion. Bartlett found that there were three patterns of distortion that took place.

Assimilation: The story became more consistent with the participants’ own cultural expectations - that is, details were unconsciously changed to fit the norms of British culture.

Leveling: The story also became shorter with each retelling as participants omitted information that was seen as not important.

Sharpening: Participants also tended to change the order of the story in order to make sense of it using terms more familiar to the culture of the participants. They also added detail and/or emotions. The participants overall remembered the main themes in the story but changed the unfamiliar elements to match their own cultural expectations so that the story remained a coherent whole although changed.

 

CONCLUSIONS:

Remembering is not a passive but rather an active process, where information is retrieved and changed to fit into existing schemas. This is done in order to create meaning in the incoming information.

 

 Memories are not copies of experiences but a reconstruction.

Bartlett, F. C. (1932). Remembering: A study in experimental and social psychology. Cambridge University Press.