Frederic Bartlett

Frederic Bartlett was born on Oct. 22, 1886. He was educated privately and at St. John's College, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow. Strongly influenced by the physician, ethnologist, and psychologist W.H.R. Rivers, Bartlett showed early leanings toward anthropology; but circumstances, not the least of which was the outbreak of World War I, led him to a career in psychology. After the war Bartlett returned to Cambridge, succeeding C.S. Myers as director of the psychological laboratory in 1922 and becoming professor of experimental psychology in 1931, a post which he held until his retirement in 1952. He died at Cambridge on Sept. 30, 1969

The War Of The Ghosts

Two men from Edulac went fishing. While thus occupied by the river they heard a noise in the distance. "It sounds like a cry ", said one, and presently there appeared some men in canoes who invited them to join the party on their adventure. One of the young men refused to go, on the ground of family ties, but the other offered to go. "But there are no arrows", he said. "The arrows are in the boat", was the reply. He thereupon took his place, while his friend returned home. The party paddled up the river to Kaloma, and began to land on the banks of the river. The enemy came rushing upon them, and some sharp fighting ensued. Presently some one was injured, and the cry was raised that the enemy were ghosts.
The party returned down the stream, and the young man arrived home feeling none the worse for his experience. The next morning at dawn he endeavoured to recount his adventures. While he was talking something black issued from his mouth. Suddenly he uttered a cry and fell down. His friends gathered round him. But he was dead.


In his major work, Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology (1932), Bartlett advanced the concept that memories of past events and experiences are actually mental reconstructions that are coloured by cultural attitudes and personal habits, rather than being direct recollections of observations made at the time. In experiments beginning in 1914, Bartlett showed that very little of an event is actually perceived at the time of its occurrence but that, in reconstructing the memory, gaps in observation or perception are filled in with the aid of previous experiences. A later work, Thinking: An Experimental and Social Study (1958), broke no new theoretical ground but added observations on the social character of human thinking.