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| MIND CHANGERS
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| | | Landmark experiments in psychology | | | |
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PROG 1 – Solomon Asch - Conformity
PROG 2 – Jean Piaget – The Three Mountains
PROG 3 – Sir Frederic Bartlett – The War of the Ghosts
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PROG 3 - Sir Frederic Bartlett - The War of the Ghosts
When the British psychologist Sir Frederic Bartlett was working at Cambridge University during the First World War, memory had only just started to be considered a psychological rather than a philosophical subject. A German psychologist called Herman Ebbinghaus dominated the field. He had spent days at a time learning lists of nonsense words, testing himself to see precisely how many he could remember. But a game of Chinese Whispers gave Bartlett an idea which he developed into a radically different approach to the study of memory. He discovered that when he asked people to repeat an unfamiliar story they had read, they changed it to fit their existing knowledge, and it was this revised story which then became incorporated into their memory. Bartlett's findings led him to propose 'schema' - the cultural and historical contextualisation of memory, which has important implications for eyewitness testimony and false memory syndrome, and even for artificial intelligence!
To test your own memory of the native American story which Bartlett used – The War of the Ghosts - read it here
Claudia Hammond investigates the impact of Bartlett's findings.
Those taking part:-
Alan Baddeley - Consulting Professor of Psychology at University of York
YOUR MEMORY: A User's Guide, Prion Books, ISBN 1-85375-213-4
(New illustrated and revised edition to be published in May 2004 by Carlton Books, ISBN 1-84442-780)
Bill Brewer - Professor of Psychology at University of Illinois
Richard Gregory - Emeritus Professor of Neuropsychology at University of Bristol
Elizabeth F. Loftus - Distinguished Professor of Psychology at University of California Irvine
Professor Norman Mackworth (retired)
James Ost - Lecturer in Psychology at University of Portsmouth
Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology by F. C. Bartlett, Introduction by Walter Kintsch
September 1995, Paperback (Hardback) ISBN: 0521483565
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