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examBoard: AQA
examType: GCSE
lessonTitle: Bartlett War of the Ghosts Study
In 1932, Sir Frederic Bartlett conducted a groundbreaking study that challenged how we understand memory. Rather than seeing memory as a perfect recording of events, Bartlett showed that memory is an active process where we reconstruct information based on our existing knowledge and cultural background.
Key Definitions:
Bartlett used a Native American folktale called "The War of the Ghosts." The story contained unfamiliar cultural elements for British participants, including supernatural events and unfamiliar concepts. This made it perfect for testing how people reconstruct unfamiliar information.
Bartlett believed that memory isn't like a tape recorder that plays back events exactly as they happened. Instead, he thought people reconstruct memories using their existing knowledge (schemas) to fill in gaps and make unfamiliar information more understandable.
Bartlett's research used several methods, but his most famous was the method of repeated reproduction:
Participants read "The War of the Ghosts" story and were asked to recall it at various time intervals:
Bartlett carefully recorded how the story changed with each retelling by the same person over time.
"One night two young men from Egulac went down to the river to hunt seals and while they were there it became foggy and calm. Then they heard war-cries and they thought: 'Maybe this is a war-party'. They escaped to the shore and hid behind a log. Now canoes came up and they heard the noise of paddles and saw one canoe coming up to them. There were five men in the canoe and they said: 'What do you think? We wish to take you along. We are going up the river to make war on the people'..."
The story continues with supernatural elements including ghosts, a man who doesn't feel wounded despite being shot with an arrow and characters who eventually die because their spirits had been taken away.
As participants recalled the story over time, Bartlett observed consistent patterns in how the story changed:
Details that seemed irrelevant or difficult to understand were left out. For example, specific names and unfamiliar cultural references were often omitted.
Unfamiliar elements were changed to more familiar ones. "Canoes" became "boats," and "hunting seals" became "fishing."
Participants added explanations to make the story more logical according to their cultural expectations. Supernatural elements were often explained away or modified.
Bartlett found that participants reconstructed the story to fit their own cultural expectations:
Based on his findings, Bartlett developed schema theory. He proposed that we use existing mental frameworks (schemas) to understand and remember new information. When recalling information, we reconstruct memories using these schemas, which can lead to distortions that make the memory more aligned with our existing knowledge.
Bartlett concluded that memory is not reproductive (exact copies) but reconstructive. We actively rebuild memories using our schemas, making them more coherent, shorter and more conventional according to our cultural background.
Bartlett's findings have important implications in many areas:
Shows why eyewitness accounts may be unreliable - witnesses reconstruct memories based on expectations and can be influenced by leading questions.
Helps teachers understand how students integrate new information with existing knowledge, emphasising the importance of building on prior knowledge.
Explains why people from different cultures may interpret and remember the same events differently based on their cultural schemas.
Elizabeth Loftus extended Bartlett's work in the 1970s with her research on the misinformation effect. She showed how easily memories can be altered by post-event information, further supporting Bartlett's view that memory is reconstructive rather than reproductive.
In one famous study, participants who were shown misleading information after watching a video of a car accident gave inaccurate testimony about what they had seen, demonstrating how memories can be altered after the event.
Bartlett's "War of the Ghosts" study revolutionised our understanding of memory by showing that:
This research laid the groundwork for modern cognitive psychology and continues to influence how we understand memory processes today. When you remember something, you're not playing back a recording you're actively rebuilding that memory using your existing knowledge and expectations.
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