Schema Theory

Schema Definition

A mental framework containing everything one knows about a particular person, object, situation or event/derived from past experiences and knowledge

Role of schemas

• help to organise memories and help with recall: retrieve key details of past events

• help guide behaviour: tells people what to expect and what procedures to follow

• help to predict what will happen next

Bradsford & Johnson

A: how schemas help people to store new information in their memories

P: randomly divided into three groups/read a paragraph describing a number of steps in a procedure/1. told paragraph is about doing laundry before they hear the paragraph 2. told the paragraph is about doing laundry after they hear the paragraph, before they are asked to recall 3. not told what the paragraph is about/tested on how much of the paragraph they can recall

F: 1 had significantly better memory

C: schemas help people encode new information by making it easy to organise and interpret/memory is about actively interpreting based on prior knowledge of the world

Evaluate Bradsford and Johnson

• high reliability

• experimental design: demonstrates a casual relationship between schema activation and ability to recall

• artificial task

Distorted Memories

Information that is consistent with schemas will be remembered but inconsistent information may be forgotten or distorted to fit schemas/when an event is not remembered well, people fill in the missing details based on schemas

Bartlett

A: how cultural schemas can influence memory

P: British participants read Native American War of the Ghosts twice/asked to recall soon after and on a later date/content and style was unfamiliar to British readers

F: length of story became shorter/more conventional/unusual details were left out or distorted (canoes changed to boats) / remained coherent/participants tried to remember the story as a whole rather than specific details

C: difficult to remember details because it does not fit British cultural schemas/does not relate to existing knowledge of the world/cultural schemas can lead to memory distortions

Evaluate Bartlett

• supports memory distortion hypothesis

• study took place in 1932, when standardised instructions were not yet given (not carefully controlled)

• low ecological validity (artificial task)