Pearson BTEC National Applied Psychology: Book 1 Revised Edition

A1 Cognitive approach Learners must be able to understand and apply knowledge of key concepts to explain aspects of human behaviour, including: ● Reconstructive memory, including the role of schema (shortening, rationalisation and confabulation). Specification content Can we rely on memory if it is reconstructive? Can you think of any real-life examples where inaccurate recall could have serious consequences? An issue to consider Bob and Sue are friends who together witnessed a street robbery and gave statements to the police. They discussed ažerwards what they had said in their statements. Bob remembered seeing a knife but Sue didn’t. Bob thought the robber was wearing a hoodie, but Sue recalled it was a baseball cap. Bob thought the robber was a teenager, but Sue said he was in his twenties. 1. Using the concept of schema, explain why Bob’s and Sue’s statements were different. (3 marks) 2. (a) In the context of reconstructive memory, state the meaning of ‘confabulation’. (1 mark) (b) Give one example of possible confabulation from the scenario. (1 mark) 3. Write down a sentence that could illustrate rationalisation in the scenario. (1 mark) 4. State what is meant by the term ‘reconstructive memory’. (1 mark) 5. Explain one way reconstructive memory could be used to understand Bob’s or Sue’s recall of the robbery. (2 marks) 6. Brie«y evaluate the view that memory is reconstructive, using Bob and/or Sue as examples. (3 marks) Exam-style questions The telephone game The method of recall that Bartlett used in his research is a bit like the game ‘Telephone’.You and four or ve friends could have a go at it. Start with a brief unfamiliar piece of text, something like this: ‘One day I met my doppelgänger. We look very similar but we had never met before. We went to the same college, we both married men called Henry, we both work in IT and we both play the ukulele. Read this to yourself, then phone a friend and repeat what you can remember to them. They listen to you, then they phone someone else and repeat what they can remember, and so on ve or six times. The last person writes down what they can recall. 1. Compare the last recalled version with the original – how has it changed? 2. How do schema affect this activity? 3. What would happen to recall if the material was even more unfamiliar? Why? ACTIVE GET Evaluation Practical applications One strength is that reconstructive memory can help explain problems with eyewitness testimony (EWT). EWT is o¡en used in court trials to establish what happened when a crime was committed. The eyewitness swears on oath that they will tell the truth about what they saw. But their recollection of what they saw may be affected by their schema. For example, they might have seen a person with a gun and expected it to be a man. Memory can be affected by schema (including expectations of what ‘should’ happen), so people do not always recall events accurately. This means evidence in court is never based on EWT alone as it can be inaccurate – a very important application of this research. Research support One strength is evidence for reconstructive memory from Bartlett’s research. As you read on the facing page, Bartlett showed that recall of an unfamiliar story was affected in a number of ways. His participants did not recall too many details but instead tried to make more sense of what they heard before storing it in memory. So the story changed signi cantly – there was evidence of shortening, rationalisation and confabulation. This shows that we reconstruct memories from elements that are in«uenced by our schema, o¡en making recall inaccurate. Some memories are accurate One weakness of reconstructive memory is that not all memories are affected by schema. Recall can be very accurate. For example, in situations that are personally important or distinctive or unusual, we can remember a lot of accurate detail. In Bartlett’s study, participants o¡en recalled the phrase, ‘Something black came out of his mouth’, because it was quite unusual. This shows that people may not always reconstruct memories, and some memories can be relatively unaffected by schema. Witnesses very rarely lie. But they do sometimes get it wrong. They take an oath to tell ‘the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth’, so they try their hardest to remember things accurately. But memory is o¡en reconstructive, so piecing together memories of what they saw is likely to be affected by schema. This is why witnesses to the same crime can o¡en have different memories of it. 17 Copyright: Sample material

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