Priya and Marcus watched a short video clip of a science laboratory scene and later discussed what they saw. Priya described a scientist wearing a sterile white lab coat and safety goggles, meticulously pipetting a solution into a computerized analytical machine. Marcus, however, insisted that the scientist was wearing a stained canvas apron without goggles and was heating water in a beaker over a simple Bunsen burner.
Marcus also recalled a student in the background knocking over a rack of test tubes and spilling chemical liquid onto the workbench. Priya disagreed, saying the student did not spill anything and was only writing on a clipboard. Marcus argued that because the laboratory was clearly cluttered and unsupervised, a dangerous spill must have happened.
Discuss, using reconstructive memory (Bartlett, 1932), including schema theory, Priya’s and Marcus’s recall of the laboratory scene.
177 exam-style questions on Edexcel A Level Psychology Content, covering Working memory model, Multi-store model of memory, Episodic and semantic long-term memory, Reconstructive memory and schema theory, Individual differences in memory, and Developmental psychology in memory. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.