Bartlett’s Reconstructive Memory 1932
Mental Schema:
AN organised package of information that stores our knowledge about the world.
We have many schemas, one for each aspect of our lives.
It contains stereotypes and expectations we have acquired during our lives.
When a schema is ‘opened up’ we subconsciously use the information in it.
Memory is not a passive and faithful record of what we experience.
Memory is constructive in nature.
Previous knowledge can be used to interpret new information and actively
reconstruct it.
We may ‘fill in the gaps’ and reconstruct it to help the new information make sense
to us.
Reconstruction Reproduction
Party Love
Memory 1 Memory 2 Memory 3
Memory 4 Memory 5 Memory 6
Prom
The memories are just taken as they are and
replayed, which is untrue because to remember
Friends School something, the memory has to be built up again.
The pink arrow represents the schema that is in play, Bartlett’s ‘War of Ghost Stories’:
changing the memory and placing things that didn’t Bartlett wanted to see whether cultural
actually happen. background and unfamiliarity with a text
would lead to distortion of memory when
participants recalled a story. To do this
Bartlett used a Native American ghost story
– The War of the Ghosts – which was both
unfamiliar and unusual.
Mental Schema:
AN organised package of information that stores our knowledge about the world.
We have many schemas, one for each aspect of our lives.
It contains stereotypes and expectations we have acquired during our lives.
When a schema is ‘opened up’ we subconsciously use the information in it.
Memory is not a passive and faithful record of what we experience.
Memory is constructive in nature.
Previous knowledge can be used to interpret new information and actively
reconstruct it.
We may ‘fill in the gaps’ and reconstruct it to help the new information make sense
to us.
Reconstruction Reproduction
Party Love
Memory 1 Memory 2 Memory 3
Memory 4 Memory 5 Memory 6
Prom
The memories are just taken as they are and
replayed, which is untrue because to remember
Friends School something, the memory has to be built up again.
The pink arrow represents the schema that is in play, Bartlett’s ‘War of Ghost Stories’:
changing the memory and placing things that didn’t Bartlett wanted to see whether cultural
actually happen. background and unfamiliarity with a text
would lead to distortion of memory when
participants recalled a story. To do this
Bartlett used a Native American ghost story
– The War of the Ghosts – which was both
unfamiliar and unusual.
