Schema theory

schema theory

t our mind has mental frameworks that help organize information - these are schemas. These schemas help us to save our cognitive energy when processing the millions of pieces of information we encounter every day.

brewer and treyens

Aim

To investigate whether people's memory of objects in a room is influenced by their of schema of what should be in an office.

Procedure

Participants were told to wait in a room for the experimenter. They were told this was the experimenters office. They did not realise the study had already began. After 35-60 seconds the participant was taken to a nearby room and allocated one of 3 conditions:
•RECALL CONDITION: participants were asked to write down as many objects as they could remember from the office. They were then given a booklet containing a list of 131 objects which they had to rate how sure they were that the object was in the room. (70 of them were not in the room)
•DRAWING CONDITION: participants were given an outline of the room and asked to draw the object they could remember
•VERBAL RECOGNITION CONDITION: participants were read a list of objects and asked whether they though the object was in the room or not.

Findings

In the writing and drawing condition participants were more likely to remember items that were congruent with their schema of an office. For example, in the written recall condition 29 participants remembered there was a desk and chair but only 8 remembered there was a skull.
Reconstruction errors also occurred where 9 participants remembered there were books when there were no books.

Explanation of results

Brewer and Treyens demonstrate how schemas influence memory recall. For example, more participants remembered objects congruent with what their schema expected them to find in an office (e.g desk and chair) than objects that are not usually found in an office (e.g skull). This is important because it shows a person's memory for the properties of a location will be strongly influenced by their default assumptions of what would typically be found there. Therefore, this study supports the assumption of schema theory that our previous understanding in a cultural setting influences our memory.

Strengths

⬆internal validity- participants weren't aware experiment began therefore no demand characteristics
⬆ecological validity- natural office setting

Weaknesses

⬇repeatability as ethical concern of deception
⬇population validity as sample is not representative (only psych students)

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