Reconstructive Memory
Subjectively, memory feels like a camera that faithfully records and replays details of our past. In fact, memory is a reconstructive process prone to systematic biases and errors—reliable at times, and unreliable at others. Memories are a combination of new and old knowledge, personal beliefs, and one's own and others' expectations. We blend these ingredients in forming a past that conforms to one's haphazardly accurate view of oneself and the world.
Reconstructing the Past
Traditionally, psychologists were interested in the temporal retention of information. Since the early 1930s, many psychologists have shifted their focus from the quantity of memory to its accuracy (Koriat, Goldsmith, and Pansky, 2000). The British psychologist Frederic C. Bartlett (1932) conducted one of the first systematic investigations of memory accuracy. He asked subjects to read a legend about Indian hunterscalled "The War of the Ghosts" and then to retell it to another subject who had not read it. The second subject then told the story to another subject, and so on, until ten subjects had heard it. The story involves two young Indian hunters who meet a group of men in a canoe, who, in turn, invite the hunters to join them in battle upriver.
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