Q31 - Serial Reproduction and the Drift of Remembered Images

Theoretical A Real exam question - full text reproduced under IBO's CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license

Richard Dawkins (1941-present) invented the idea of memes, and Sir Frederic Bartlett (1886-1969) showed previous knowledge alters the processing of new stimuli. Bartlett asked British people to reproduce a drawing of Native American masks from memory. This was passed to a new person to memorise and reproduce, and the reproduction passed on, several times in succession (1). This study has been repeated recently (2). Representative reproductions are shown.

Figure for Q31: Serial Reproduction and the Drift of Remembered Images

This question mixes multiple-choice/numeric-estimate parts with True/False statements - answer each part using the information and data above.

A. Memories tended to simplify the original object.

B. Objects tended to be remembered as more similar to familiar objects than is actually the case.

C. The participants of the study were instructed to focus on making accurate reproductions.

D. Memories included features not present on the actual object.

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Question reproduced from IBO 2017, Theoretical Exam A, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 - attributed to the International Biology Olympiad. Open the full exam PDF · Official answer key & worked solutions