Schema Theory

Schema definition

A mental representation of an individual's pre-existing knowledge about the world and their experiences 

What is a schema

• Schemas are plans and patterns formed about what we experience 

• They are mental structures and frameworks used to understand the world

• Brain = room of filing cabinets. Within each drawer and file there is everything you know

• E.g. elephant = grey, trunk, large 

Piagets schema theory

• Piaget argues that children develop through experience, they use adaptation to adjust to the world around them as they experience new things

• Their ideas take the form of schemas which represent the world

• E.g. You have a scheme for a classroom, what it looks like, what you would see inside

• We create schemes from the moment we are born

Processes of adaptation

• Schema development

• Assimilation

• Accommodation

• Equilibrium

Assimilation

When we incorporate new experiences into existing schemas

Accommodation

When we realise that a scheme no longer works and has to be changed to deal with a new experience

Equilibrium

This means our schemas work for us and explain all that we experience. We are in a state of mental balance

Name of Schema theory study

Brewer and Treyens

Brewer and Treyens Aim

To see how schema affects the formation and retrieval of memory in an everyday life situation, in essence investigating the memory of places.

Brewer and Treyens Procedure

• There were 86 participants

• Told to sit in an office

• All the participants had the same point of view

• Some things you wouldn’t expect to see were in the office, like a skull, a frisbee and a wine bottle

• Some things you would expect to see weren’t there, like books or a lamp

• After 35 seconds, the participant went to a different room

• The participants were questioned about the contents of the room in one of three ways

• They were asked to write down and describe the objects they saw in the room. This includes size, shape, colour

• The first group was also given a list of 131 objects (61 in the room and 70 not) and told to rate how sure they were that the object was in the office

• The second group was given an outline of the office and asked to draw what they saw

• The third was read a list and asked which item were in the room

Brewer and Treyens Results

• The participants who described what they saw on paper and drew it tended to remember objects associated with their schema of an office

• This includes objects that weren’t actually there

• They forget the objects that didn’t fit in their schema, like a skull.

• The participants who got a list of objects tended to remember objects that didn’t fit into their schema

Brewer and Treyens Conclusion

Schemas plays an important role in place memory. We’re more likely to remember information that is consistent with our memories