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examBoard: AQA
examType: GCSE
lessonTitle: Review and Practice - Reconstructive Memory
Memory isn't like a video recorder that captures and stores everything exactly as it happened. Instead, our memories are actively constructed and reconstructed each time we recall them. This process is known as reconstructive memory.
Key Definitions:
Our brains don't have unlimited storage capacity, so we don't store every detail of our experiences. Instead, we store the gist or key points and then reconstruct the rest when needed. This process is influenced by:
Sir Frederic Bartlett (1932) conducted a groundbreaking study that demonstrated reconstructive memory. He asked British participants to read and recall an unfamiliar Native American folk tale called "The War of the Ghosts." When participants recalled the story later, they:
Schemas are mental frameworks that organise our knowledge about the world. When we recall memories, we use schemas to fill in missing details.
Example: If you're recalling a visit to a restaurant, your "restaurant schema" might lead you to remember ordering food even if you're not sure exactly what you ate.
Confabulation occurs when we unconsciously fill gaps in our memory with invented details that we believe to be true.
Example: A witness might "remember" a criminal wearing a hat because that fits their schema of what criminals look like, even if no hat was present.
This is our tendency to make unfamiliar information fit with our existing understanding.
Example: In Bartlett's study, participants changed "hunting seals" to "fishing" because it was more familiar to their culture.
Bartlett used a Native American folk tale that contained unfamiliar cultural elements for his British participants. The story involved supernatural elements like ghosts leaving bodies and people dying without visible wounds.
When participants recalled the story (sometimes months later), they made it shorter and more coherent according to their cultural expectations. Supernatural elements were either rationalised or omitted. For example:
This study showed how memory is reconstructed based on cultural schemas and demonstrated that we remember the gist rather than exact details.
Understanding reconstructive memory is crucial when considering eyewitness testimony in legal settings. Research has shown that eyewitness accounts can be highly unreliable due to the reconstructive nature of memory.
Information received after an event can be incorporated into the original memory. Elizabeth Loftus demonstrated this in her classic car crash studies:
Participants who were asked "How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?" estimated higher speeds than those asked about cars that "hit" each other. A week later, the "smashed" group were more likely to falsely remember seeing broken glass.
When a weapon is present during a crime, witnesses often focus their attention on the weapon rather than the perpetrator's face or other details.
This narrows attention and reduces the accuracy of identification and recall of other details. This is an evolutionary response - we focus on the immediate threat.
Understanding reconstructive memory has important applications in many areas:
The Cognitive Interview technique was developed to improve eyewitness recall by asking witnesses to recreate the context of the event and recall from different perspectives.
Teachers can help students build accurate memories by connecting new information to existing schemas and providing multiple opportunities for retrieval practice.
Understanding that memories can be reconstructed helps therapists work with traumatic memories and recognise that recovered memories may not be entirely accurate.
The Cognitive Interview was developed by psychologists Geiselman and Fisher in the 1980s as a way to improve eyewitness recall. It uses techniques based on our understanding of reconstructive memory:
Research shows this technique can increase accurate recall by 25-40% compared to standard police interviews.
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