Bartlett Study (cognitive)

Question 1

Aim

Answer 1

To investigate how memory of a story is affected by type of reproduction.

Question 2

Bartlett Study (cognitive)

Procedure

Answer 2

• Participants read “The War of Ghosts” twice at normal pace
• 15 minutes later, participants “reproduced” the story
• Bartlett assigned the participants to one of two groups:
  
  • Repeated reproduction: They were asked to reproduce the story after a short time and then again repeatedly through the course of a period of days or weeks
  • Serial reproduction: They had to recall the story and retell it to another person, who retold the story to another person, etc.

Question 3

Bartlett Study (cognitive)

Findings

Answer 3

• Participants in both groups altered the story as they tried to remember it (created distortions)
• 3 patterns of distortion that were evident
• Assimilation (normalization of new information to pre-existing knowledge)
  
  • Story shifted towards the participants’ views and British cultural expectations
• Leveling - Loss of details
  
  • Story shortened as participants omitted information that was seen as insignificant
• Sharpening - Interference are made to new information
  
  • Details and emotions were added to story or order was changed
• Information is often being changed to fit into existing schemas to create meaning
• Memories are not copies of experiences, but reconstructions

Question 4

Bartlett Study (cognitive)

Limitations

Answer 4

• Lack of reliability - Times between retellings were not controlled and participants were not asked to be as accurate as possible
• Cross-cultural validity - Study only used on British participants
• No control group - Would be interesting to see how distortions occured in a native American group
• Temporal validity - Study was conducted almost 100 years ago

Question 5

Bartlett Study (cognitive)

Ethical considerations

Answer 5

• Slight deception used to reduce participant bias

Question 6

Bartlett Study (cognitive)

Research Method

Answer 6

Experiment