Reconstructive Memory

Aim The effects of unfamilarity on the recall of a folk story 

Method: English pps heard an unfamilair north american folk talke called: 'The war of the ghosts'

• Story contained words and ideas which are not in western stories
• After 20 hours pps had to recall as much of the story as possible
• PPS has to recall the sotry many more times

Results:Story was recalled in a number of different ways. PPS retold the story using language and narrative techiniques that is in there cultural +literacy backgrounds

• Found these differences:Rationalisation, omissions, changes in the order,alterarions in the importance and distortations of emotions 
• Distortions became even more pronounced over time so that it increasingly resembled an orginary english story 

Conclusion: Memory for folk tale continued beng reconstructed overt ime and became less like he original story.The reconstruction made the story moe coherent and easily remembered by the pps 

Evaluation: + it was more important that you paid attention, it made use draw more attention to the way our schema works and store memories - The study has been criticised for being poorly designed and controlled