Memory is an active process
Old idea: memory is like a recording. We press play and get the same thing back.
Better idea: memory is reconstructive. This means we rebuild it each time. We keep the main idea (the gist) and some pieces. Then we fill the gaps with what makes sense to us.
A schema is a set of ideas we already have about something. For example, a 'birthday party' schema has cake, gifts and candles. Schemas help us understand fast. But they also bend our memories.
Bartlett's story study
In the early 1900s, the British psychologist Frederic Bartlett gave English students a folk story from a very different culture. It had ghosts, canoes and strange events.
Students retold the story after some time, and again later. Bartlett found three changes:
- Shortening: the story got shorter. Details that made no sense were dropped.
- Rationalisation: strange parts were explained in a 'sensible' way.
- Familiarisation: unfamiliar things became familiar ones (a canoe became a boat).
Evaluation: the idea is very useful and later studies support it. But Bartlett's study was not well controlled. Instructions were vague and he did not use statistics. Some changes may have been guesses, not true memory changes.
Why we forget: interference and context
Interference means two similar memories get mixed up.
- Proactive interference: old learning blocks new learning. You keep typing your old password.
- Retroactive interference: new learning spoils old learning. After learning French words, you forget some Spanish words.
Context is the place, smell or mood when you learned something. These are cues. When the cues are missing, recall is harder. When they are present, recall is better. Divers who learned words underwater recalled them better underwater than on land.
False memories
A false memory is remembering something that did not happen, or remembering it wrongly, while feeling sure it is true.
In a well-known type of study, people watch a car crash video. Then they are asked how fast the cars were going when they 'hit' or 'smashed' each other. The 'smashed' group guesses higher speeds. A week later, more of them say they saw broken glass, though there was none.
This matters for eyewitnesses. A leading question (one that suggests the answer) can change what a witness remembers.
Try it: the retelling game
Write a short, odd story of 8 sentences. Tell it to one friend. That friend tells the next, and so on, for 4 people. Write down the last version. Count: how many details survived? Which ones changed into something more normal? Compare with the 3D retelling tower.
Key formulas and definitions
- Key term: Reconstructive memory = rebuilding a memory each time we recall it
- Key term: Schema = ready-made ideas about how something usually is
- Key term: Proactive interference = old blocks new; Retroactive interference = new spoils old
- Key term: Context cue = place, mood or smell that helps recall
- Key term: False memory = a confident memory of something that did not happen
Worked examples
1. Aman tells a friend about a wedding with an unusual ceremony. Months later he says 'it was a normal wedding with a band and dinner'. Which process is this?
Familiarisation and shortening. The unusual parts were replaced by his wedding schema, and odd details were dropped.
2. Sara changed her phone PIN but keeps typing the old one. Name the type of forgetting.
Proactive interference: the old PIN (learned first) blocks recall of the new PIN.
3. A student learns a topic in the library and does better in a test in the same library. Explain.
Context-dependent recall. The library gives the same cues as when learning, and the cues help bring the memory back.
Common mistakes
- Thinking memory is a perfect recording. It is rebuilt each time.
- Mixing up proactive and retroactive. Proactive = old disturbs new (pro = forward). Retroactive = new disturbs old (retro = backward).
- Thinking a confident memory must be true. People can be sure and still wrong.
- Saying Bartlett's study was a strict lab experiment. It was informal, with no set instructions.