Bartlett's War of the Ghosts Study

• Frederic Bartlett conducted studies in 1932, revealing memories are formed through reconstruction.
• Bartlett's hypothesis stated that recollection transforms over time when recalling a story or picture.
• People use familiar expectations to make unfamiliar information more familiar.
• Expectations are based on social and cultural knowledge.

Aim

• Memory reconstruction is investigated when people repeatedly recall information over weeks or months.
• The aim was to use a story from a different culture to observe how cultural expectations affect memory.

Method

• Serial reproductions technique was used.
• Participants heard "The War of the Ghosts" story and reproduced it shortly after.
• The reproduced version was repeated with other participants.
• The story belonged to a different culture that differed from the participants.
• Participants were Bartlett's university students in the UK.
• Bartlett kept record of successive recall protocol.
• The participants did not know the study's real purpose.

Results

• Participants recalled parts of the story and interpreted within their own reference (social, cultural expectation].
• The story was shortened via omissions.
• The phrases were changed to the participant's culture such as 'boats' instead of 'canoe'.
• The recalled version became fixed with slight variation.

Conclusions

• Transformations make materials easier to remember.
• Fragments are remembered and people use knowledge to reconstruct memory.
• Individuals remember meaning and sketch stories using details.
• Reconstructed versions of events are simpler to remember and become memories.

What is meant by Culture

• Culture is the beliefs and expectations around us.
• People are not conscious of living in a culture, just as fish are not aware of living in water.

Lacks control

• The study was conducted casually without standards.
• Participants did not receive specific instructions.
• Other studies found recall more accurate when participants knew recall was important.

The results were biased

• Bartlett's beliefs likely affected his interpretation of the data.
• Conclusions depended on how the results were interpreted.
• Bartlett analyzed each recall to decide what counted as accurate.
• Cannot fully trust the results because of these potential biases.

The story was unusual

• The story's unusualness might not reflect everyday memory processes.
• Memories are not impacted by cultural expectations, so people recall things accurately.
• The study may not be useful for everyday memory.