MEMORY:Representation of knowledge (continued), Memory for stories

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Cognitive Psychology PSY 504

Lesson 38

MEMORY

Representation of knowledge (continued)

Psychological Reality of Scripts

Bower, Black & Turner (1979) reported a series of experiments in which the psychological reality

of the script notion was tested. They asked subjects to write down 20 most important events in an

episode such as going to a restaurant. With 32 subjects, they failed to get complete agreement

on what these events were. No action was listed as part of the episode by all of the subjects.

However considerable consensus was reported. Highest agreement level was;

Sit Down, Look at Menu, Order, Eat, Pay Bill, Leave

73 percent reported this sequence.

Memory for stories

Bower et al (1979) went on to show a number of effects of such action scripts on memory for

stories. They had subjects study stories that included some but not all of the typical events from a

script. Subjects were then asked to recall the stories or to recognize whether various statements

came from the story. When recalling stories, subjects reported part of the script that had not been

part of the stories. Similarly on recognition task subjects thought they had seen a sentence that

was part of the script but not of the story.

Subjects showed a greater recall actual items from the stories or to recognize actual items than to

falsify recognize foils not in the stories, despite the distortion in the direction of the general

schema.

More memory for stories

In another experiment, these investigators read to subjects stories composed of 12 prototypical

actions in an episode. Eight of the actions occurred in their standard temporal position, but four

were arranged. Thus, in a restaurant story bill paid in the beginning and menu read at the end. In

recalling stories subjects showed a strong tendency to put the events back in the normal and

natural order. This experiment serves as another demonstration of the powerful effect of general

schemas on memory for stories.

Bartlett (1932)

Bartlett (1932) conducted an experiment for getting evidence for the role of schemas in memory.

He used a story called "The War of the Ghosts". It has been used in research on many

subsequent occasions and is still a popular research item today. Bartlett was interested in how

the subjects would remember a story that fit in so poorly with their cultural schemas. He had

subjects recall the story after various delays. The story was,

The War of the Ghosts

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." One of the young men said, "I have no arrows." "Arrows are in the

canoe," they said. "I will not go along. I might be killed. My relatives do not know where I have

gone. But you," he said, turning to the other, "may go with them." So one of the young men went,

but the other returned home. And the warriors went on up the river to a town on the other side of

Kalama. The people came down to the water and they began to fight, and many were killed. But

presently the young man heard one of the warriors say, "Quick, let us go home: that Indian has

been hit." Now he thought: "Oh, they are ghosts." He did not feel sick, but they said he had been

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Cognitive Psychology PSY 504

shot. So the canoes went back to Egulac and the young man went ashore to his house and made

a fire. And he told everybody and said: "Behold I accompanied the ghosts, and we went to fight.

Many of our fellows were killed, and many of those who attacked us were killed. They said I was

hit, and I did not feel sick." He told it all, and then he became quiet. When the sun rose he fell

down. Something black came out of his mouth. His face became contorted. The people jumped

up and cried. He was dead.

Results

The results of this experiment were,

Subjects omitted much of the story, changed many of the facts and imported new information.

These inaccuracies in memory were not particularly interesting in and of themselves. The

important observation is that these inaccuracies were systematic. Subjects distorted the story to

fit with own cultural background: hunting seals becomes fishing, canoe becomes boat. So, they

found that when subjects read a story that does not fit with their own schemas, they will exhibit a

powerful tendency to distort the story to make it fit.

Applications for studying

Numerous manipulations to improve subjects' memory in recalling a long list of items are given

below. So the applications of studying are given,

Method of Loci

PQ4R Method

Elaborate

Spacing Effect

Encoding variability

Method of Loci

A classical mnemonic technique has its effect by promoting good organization in recall situations.

This technique, used extensively in ancient times when speeches were given without written

notes, is still used today. Loci are the plural of locus, it means location. Basically, to use the

method of loci the individual imagines a fixed path through a familiar area with some fixed

locations along the path. The method is:

Write down a list of important things you would like to remember in your examination. Now

visualize a path in your neighborhood where you usually walk. Now take an imaginary walk on the

path. Take the first item on the list and store it in one of the objects along the path. Do this with all

the items. Now take another walk and retrieve items.

For instance, if there were such a path on campus from the bookstore to the library, we might use

it. To remember a series of things, we simply mentally walk along the path, associating the

objects with the fixed locations. Take an example of a student of history. Student wants to learn

the name of previous leaders of Pakistan. Like, Quaid Azam, Allama Iqbal, Liaqat Ali Khan, sir

Syed Ahmad Khan, and Sardar Abdurab Nishtar. To associate the Quaid azam with bookstore,

and we might imagine Quaid Azam is buying books from this store. To associate the Allama

Iqbal with the record shop, he might imagine Allama Iqbal was listening the Ghazlas while

standing this record shop.

Like that we associate the entire list with something that comes in our way. Then to recreate the

list, we need only take an imaginary walk down this path, receiving the associations to each

location. This technique works well with very much longer lists; we only need more locations.

There is evidence that the same loci can be used over and over again in the learning of different

lists.

Two important principles underline the effectiveness of the method of loci:

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Cognitive Psychology PSY 504

1. the technique imposes organization on an otherwise unorganized list. We are guaranteed

that if we follow the mental path at time of recall, we will pass all the locations for which

we created associations.

2. Second is that generating connections between the locations and the items forces us to

process the material elaborately.

PQ4R Method

This is also an important technique it is consisted on these phases. The PQ4R method drives its

name from the six phases these are

Preview

Questions

Read (Answer questions)

Reflect (Link with what you already know)

Recite (Recall)

Review (go through it mentally, answer questions)

Question making is the most important

Elaboration

This method is consisted on

Making diagrams and label them

Making mental maps

Using PQ4R

Trying and explaining it to your little brother or sister.

Writing a paragraph on how you feel about the material.

Spacing Effect & Encoding Variability

Encoding variability

Learn the same material in different rooms

Spacing Effect

Give as much a gap you can between reading and re-reading

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