AP PSYCHOLOGY

LEARNING

BIOLOGY COGNITION AND LEARNING

Question [CLICK ON ANY CHOICE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER]
What was the procedure of Bartlett’s “War of the Ghosts” study?
A
English people were asked to read and recall a traditional Native American story
B
Researchers asked subjects to recall a car crash, but used different verbs each time.
C
Participants were asked to recall a traumatic memory and a pleasant long-term memory.
D
Subjects had to memorize strings of letters.
Explanation: 

Detailed explanation-1: -Procedure: Bartlett asked British participants to hear a story and reproduce it after a short time and then repeatedly over a period of months or years (serial reproduction). The story was an unfamiliar Native American legend called The War of the Ghosts.

Detailed explanation-2: -Bartlett investigated his theory of reconstructive memory in an experiment called ‘War of the Ghosts’. He used a method called ‘serial reproduction’. Serial reproduction is meant to duplicate the process by which stories are passed down through generations, how gossip and rumours are spread.

Detailed explanation-3: -Bartlett aimed to find out how individuals stored meaningful information and how stories were passed on from one person to another, which is something known as ‘serial reproduction’.

Detailed explanation-4: -A weakness with the original studies into Reconstructive Memory is that they were not very scientific. For example, Bartlett showed how participants changed The War of the Ghosts to fit in with their own expectations and understanding, such as replacing canoes with boats.

Detailed explanation-5: -Bartlett wanted to investigated whether people’s cultural background would lead to distortion of memory when recalling the information. Memory of the story is being affect by their experience and their culture. The participants were asked to to read over a Native American folktale named “The War of the Ghost."

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