Schema Theory Quiz

What is a schema ?

Mental model or mental framework containing everything you know about a particular object, person, situation, or event.

What are schemas derived from?

Prior experience and knowledge

How do schemas play a role in memory and behaviour?

Help organize memories, help in recall, guide behaviour, and predict what will happen next

How do schemas distort memory?

Information inconsistent with our schemas may be forgotten or changed to “fit” or schemas

Limitations of schema theory

Schemas are a hypothesized construct, and too vague to be deemed useful. We aren’t sure how schemas are acquired in the first place or the exact way they influence cognitive processes. They also cannot account for why schema-inconsistent information is soemtimes recalled

What do schemas influence

Coding, storage, and retrieval

What is a script schema

About events in time rather than objects

What is a self schema?

Schemas we have about ourselves

What is a social schema?

About different groups of people in society, specifically stereotypes

What is accommodation?

Existing schema is replaced

What is assimilation ?

New info added to schema

What is leveling?

Length of memory becomes shorter, omitting information that appears unimportant

What is sharpening?

Changing the order of the memory to make sense, in terms of cultural beliefs and significance

True or False: Schemas/Reconstructive memory is an active process.

True