|
People in many preliterate cultures rely on their memories to recall personal and societal information and pass it on orally to children. Researchers are interested in the influence of culture on memory. In one early study, Ross and Millson (1970) found that college students in Ghana (who lived in a culture rich in oral tradition) remembered story themes better than students in the United States. Our cultural experiences and personal interests shape our memories. This might explain why I am able to identify most popular songs from the 1960s but have difficulty remembering Eastern religious practices.
Researchers must be careful when conducting cross-cultural studies. For example, there is some evidence that formal education influences memory. Many activities in school stress memorization and teach students how to organize information to improve memory. Those cultures that encourage education may differ because of schooling rather than cultural practices. Wagner (1980) studied children from Morocco who either attended school or did not. On a memory test for drawings, both groups remembered the last drawing (recency effect), but the children who attended school were much more likely to remember the first drawing (primacy effect). It is thus important to include education as a variable when studying different cultures. |
| Copyright ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Any use is subject to the McGraw-Hill Higher Education is one of the many fine businesses of The McGraw-Hill Companies. Please visit our Technical support website at http://mhhe.com/support. |
 |