Schema theory

Bransford and Johnson (cognitive schema)

What is a schema?

A schema is a cluster of knowledge or memory that is stored in the mind.

What is schema theory?

Schema theory is a combination of ideas about how our mind organises information and how this can impact our behaviour and thinking.

—> The idea that our knowledge of the world is organised into categories and clusters called schemas.

One function of schema theory?

That the function of our schema is to save cognitive energy by making processing information easier.

Another being the way we understand new information (as we relate new info to our old info stored in our schemas).

Bransford and Johnson (AIMS)

To investigate the effect of context on our comprehension and memory of text passages.

Bransford and Johnson (PROCEDURE)

• Male and female participants (50), all participants who heard a tape-recorded passage and were then required to recall the passage as accurately as possible

• 5 conditions, no context (no context 1 = heard once, no context 2 = heard twice, context before, context after and partial context)

• An image that contained elements mentioned in the passage

Bransford and Johnson (RESULTS)

The group that remembered the most (context before) scoring 5.8 out of 18 compared to the other 4 conditions scoring around 2.8

—> The group that got context before also ranked their own comprehension of the passage higher than other groups

Bransford and Johnson (CONCLUSION)

Thus, demonstrating how schemas can improve comphrehension of new information (as when our schema is activated we are able to relate new information to old existing information).