Categories
psychology

The Constructive Character of Remembering


We must, then, consider what does actually happen more often than not when we say that we remember. The first notion to get rid of is that memory is primarily or literally reduplicative, or reproductive. In a world of constantly changing environment, literal recall is extraordinarily unimportant. It is with remembering as it is with the stroke in a skilled game. We may fancy that we are repeating a series of movements learned a long time before from a text-book or from a teacher. But motion study shows that in fact we build up the stroke afresh on a basis of the immediately preceding balance of postures and the momentary needs of the game. Every time we make it, it has its own characteristics.

Bartlett, F. C. (1995). Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology. Cambridge University Press. my emphasis

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *