Frederic Bartlett
British psychologist who studied memory as reconstruction
British psychologist at Cambridge whose 1932 book Remembering developed a schema account of memory and included the 'War of the Ghosts' recall study. He also worked with Kenneth Craik on the Medical Research Council's Applied Psychology Unit.
Why this person matters
Bartlett argued that remembering is an active reconstruction shaped by a person's existing knowledge rather than a replay of stored traces. He drew the schema idea from discussions with the neurologist Henry Head, and his applied work with Kenneth Craik dealt with practical problems for government.
Main contributions
Remembering and schemas
Remembering (1932) gathered experiments using figures, photographs and stories and reinterpreted earlier data with the schema concept he took from Henry Head. He is also credited with the transmission chain method.
The War of the Ghosts
Edwardian English participants read a Native American folk story and recalled it after increasing intervals. Details that did not fit their expectations were dropped or changed into familiar forms; for example, canoes were recalled as boats. The study is used to illustrate reconstructive memory.
Applied psychology
The Medical Research Council's Applied Psychology Unit at Cambridge was established in 1944 with Kenneth Craik as first director, and Bartlett extended his work to bodily skills with Craik's help. In Thinking (1958) he reported completion experiments in which participants finished open-ended stories.
Context and limits
Bergman and Roediger (1999) noted that Bartlett's repeated reproduction results had never been successfully replicated, then reported a close replication with the same story that matched his main findings: forgetting, rationalisation and distortion over time. The study used a single unfamiliar folk story and participants of one period and place, which is part of how it shows schema-driven change.
In your introductory course
Memory.Appears in the memory chapter for reconstructive memory and schemas, and is a standard contrast to Ebbinghaus's laboratory approach.
Related course reading: Psychology 2e, section 7.1. This is course context rather than a biographical source.
Years of active work
- 1922
Took over the Cambridge psychological laboratory after C. S. Myers left.
- 1931
Became the first holder of Cambridge's Chair of Experimental Psychology.
- 1932
Published Remembering and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.
- 1944
The Medical Research Council's Applied Psychology Unit was established at Cambridge, with Craik as director.
- 1958
Published Thinking: An Experimental and Social Study.
Sources
- Cambridge University Library, Sir Frederic Bartlett Archive, Bartlett's Intellectual BiographyUniversity. Institutional biography inspected.
- Washington University in St. Louis profiles, Bergman and Roediger (1999), Can Bartlett's repeated reproduction experiments be replicated?University. Abstract inspected.
- Wikipedia, Frederic BartlettReference work. Reference article inspected.