Repression- Freud

1. Repression- Freud Cue-Dependency- Tulving Reconstructive - Bartlett Tulving suggested cues are extra pieces of information that help to locate an item in LTM. The cues must be encoded at he same time as memory. Context cues are the environment that can trigger memory: smell, sight, taste. State cues are internal triggers that may be cognitive, physiological or emotional. (1974) Bartlett maintained memory wasn’t like a tape recorder and the idea is that memory isn't perfectly formed, encoded and retrieved. Past experiences for individuals would affect memories for events. Input would be perception of an event, processing would be interpretation and perception. Interpretation includes previous experience and schemata. Schemata are idea sand concepts and scripts about the world, which tell you how to behave in certain situations . Memory of an event includes traces at the time, previous experience, retrieving knowledge that has been altered to fit with knowledge person has. (1932) Freud came up with the idea that we forcibly forget facts that provoke anxiety or unhappiness, therefore protecting ourselves against negative emotions. He believed that repressed memories stayed active in the mind but an individual is not aware of them, and they can trigger symptoms. Repression is normally acquired in childhood with bad experiences and relationships with parents. At its most dramatic it is the blanking out of all traumatic memories. For example people who experienced sexual abuse at a young age forget experience through adolescence and start to remember at the beginning of adulthood. (1894) Bartlett thought of the idea of reconstructive memory in a game of Chinese Whispers, where a story or phrase is passed around and by the end the story is different from the original story. He used an Native American folk story called ‘War of Ghosts’ which was unfamiliar to participants and wasn’t from heir culture, so didn't fit in with existing schemata. When he asked them to recall the story it became shorter going from 330 to 180 words. Participants altered the story by filling in their own memories to make it make sense. They therefore reconstructed their memory. Criticisms of the Cue-Dependency theory is that context and state may not be different. It may be that particular contexts evoke corresponding states, so all affects are state dependant. It doesn't explain why emotionally charged memories remain vivid without the presence of context cues. It only really explains forgetting from long-term memory, suggesting it is not present in STM.