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EnglandPsychologyQuick questions
Paper 1: Foundations in Psychology - Cognitive psychology
Quick questions on Cognitive psychology: models of memory and forgetting - Edexcel A-Level Psychology
5short Q&A pairs drawn directly from our worked dot-point answer. For full context and worked exam questions, read the parent dot-point page.
What is the reconstructive nature of memory (Bartlett, 1932)?Show answer
In Bartlett's War of the Ghosts study, English participants read an unfamiliar Native American folk tale, then recalled it after delays. Recall became shorter, more conventional and distorted to fit Western schemas (for example "canoes" became "boats" and supernatural elements were dropped). Bartlett concluded that memory is not a literal recording but a reconstruction guided by schemas, a foundation for later eyewitness testimony research (Loftus).
What is theories of forgetting?Show answer
Forgetting is explained by competing theories that Edexcel expects you to distinguish:
What is q1?Show answer
Describe the working memory model of memory. [4 marks]
What is q2?Show answer
Explain retrieval failure as an explanation of forgetting. [3 marks]
What is q3?Show answer
Evaluate the reconstructive theory of memory using one named study. [6 marks]
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