Schema Theory

Schema Theory

Accommodation: When we restructure or modify our existing schema so that new information can fit in better.  For example, as technology changes over time, our schema about technology works also changes. There is no reason to maintain schema of how my computer worked 30 years ago.

Assimilation: A strategy for understanding new experiences by comparing them to preexisting schemas. As new information is learned, it is added to the collection of experience. For example, when I go to a hotel and have to use a new shower, I will first try all I know from past experience and then, when that does not work, I will add the new information to my collection of past experiences.

Priming: When an experience or exposure to a stimulus puts a particular schema at the forefront of our mind; this then influences our behavior and cognition.

Schema: Mental representations that are derived from prior experience and knowledge. Schemas help us to predict what to expect based on what has happened before.  They are used to organize our knowledge, assist recall, guide our behavior, and help us to make sense of current experiences.

Schema congruence: Information that is in line with our past experience and knowledge. 

Schema incongruence: When information is not in line with our past experience and knowledge.

Script: Patterns of behavior that are learned through our interaction with the environment.

Reconstructive Memory

Reconstructive memory: a theory of memory recall, in which the act of remembering is influenced by other cognitive processes including perception, past experience, imagination, and beliefs.

Schema: Mental representations that are derived from prior experience and knowledge. Schemas help us to predict what to expect based on what has happened before.  They are used to organize our knowledge, assist recall, guide our behavior, and help us to make sense of current experiences.

Semantic memory: a memory of a fact without a memory of any specific experience. Semantic memories are reproduced.

Sharpening: Sharpening is how we remember and emphasize smaller details that are consistent with our cognitive schema and affects how we remember a story. Sharpening can even influence us to add some details that weren’t there.

Leveling: Leveling is when we leave out details when recalling a memory; this may be because the details were schema incongruent, they were not seen as important, or they were not understood.

Schemata and Cognitive Efficiency

Humans are cognitive misers:

• Because cognitive resources are limited (attention and working memory), people use mental shortcuts (heuristics) to save effort and make decisions quickly

• Heuristics: simplified strategies and rules of thumb based off of schemas that help people to solve problems or make judgements quickly, but they can also lead to systematic errors or biases (stereotypes)

Potential Exam Questions:

• Explain Schema Theory

• Explain one or more studies of Schema Theory

• Discuss Schema Theory

• Evaluate Schema Theory

• Discuss one model of memory

• Contrast two models of memory

Brewer and Treyens: aim

To investigate the role of schema in the encoding and retrieval of episodic memory.

Brewer and Treyens: participants

86 psych students at university

Brewer and Treyens: method

True experiment: large amounts of controls and random allocation participants to the 3 different conditions to test their recall

Brewer and Treyens: conditions

Recall Condition: Participants were asked to write down as many objects as they were able to remember. They were then given a booklet with a list of objects, where they had to rate each item on how sure they were that the item had been in the room.

Drawing Condition: Participants were given an outline of the room and were asked to draw the items they remembered.

Verbal Recognition Condition: Participants were read a list of objects and then were asked if those objects were in the room or not.

Brewer and Treyens: procedure