Day #1 of Schema Theory Lesson
The goal of the following activity is to give students background knowledge on schema theory, Bartlett's study War of Ghosts and the
effect of schema on recall.
Activity Directions:
Read the following information that pertains to schema theory as well as the information about the multi-store model which can be found on pages
72-75 of the IB text book. After your reading, answer the “check you understanding” questions on a separate sheet of paper.
Schema theory: Definitions
Schemas are used to organize our knowledge, to assist recall, to guide our behaviour, to predict likely happenings and to help us to make sense of
current experiences. Schemas are cognitive structures that are derived from prior experience and knowledge. They simplify reality, setting up
expectations about what is probable in relation to particular social and textual contexts. Schemas are culturally specific, but may vary even within a
single culture because of such factors as class.
Scripts are schemas about events in time rather than schemas for objects. We have scripts for how to go to dinner in a restaurant, what happens on
Christmas day, or what makes a romantic date; when events don’t follow our scripts, we can become frustrated, angry, disappointed, or simply
confused.
The concept of schema was first used by Jean Piaget in 1926. He suggested that children learn using existing schemas that are either
accommodated or assimilated. Accommodation is when an existing schema is replaced. For example, as technology evolves and we have new ways
of doing things, I expect a computer to work in these new ways. I replace my old schema with a new one. Assimilation is when you add information
to your schema. So, for example, I know how a shower works. I go into a hotel and have a shower that works differently. I incorporate or assimilate
that knowledge into my understanding of showers.
Schema theory: Research
Schema theory predicts that we interpret our experiences by using relevant social and textual schemas. Bartlett (1932) described how schemata
influence memory in his research with The War of the Ghosts story. He found that in the process of retelling the story, three phenomena occurred:
leveling, sharpening, and assimilation. Bartlett found that pre-existing schema may lead to memory distortions.
The war of the ghosts
Background
One of the leading researchers in memory before Bartlett was the German psychologist Ebbinghaus (1885) who tried to study pure memory and
forgetting rates by learning nonsense syllables and then reproducing them. Bartlett (1932) developed a different approach to the study of memory
when he asked people to reproduce an unfamiliar story they had read. Bartlett found that people changed the story to fit into their existing
knowledge. He argued that memory is an active process rather than a passive tape-recording of experience as suggested by Ebbinghaus.
Procedure
The aim of his study was to investigate how memory of a story is affected by previous knowledge. He wanted to see if cultural background and
unfamiliarity with a text would lead to distortion of memory when the story was recalled. Bartlett’s hypothesis was that memory is reconstructive and
that people store and retrieve information according to expectations formed by cultural schemas.
Bartlett performed a study where he used serial reproduction, which is a technique where participants hear a story or see a drawing and are told to
reproduce it after a short time and then to do so again repeatedly over a period of days, weeks, months or years. Bartlett told participants a Native
American legend called The War of the Ghosts. The participants in the study were British; for them the story was filled with unknown names and
concepts, and the manner in which the story was developed was also foreign to them. The story was therefore ideal to study how memory was
reconstructed based on schema processing.
Results
Bartlett found that participants changed the story as they tried to remember it - a process called distortion. Bartlett found that there were three
patterns of distortion that took place. Assimilation: The story became more consistent with the participants’ own cultural expectations - that is,
details were unconsciously changed to fit the norms of British culture. Leveling: The story also became shorter with each retelling as participants
omitted information which was seen as not important. Sharpening: Participants also tended to change the order of the story in order to make sense
of it using terms more familiar to the culture of the participants. They also added detail and/or emotions. The participants overall remembered the
main themes in the story but changed the unfamiliar elements to match their own cultural expectations so that the story remained a coherent whole
although changed.
Discussion
Remembering is not a passive but rather an active process, where information is retrieved and changed to fit into existing schemas. This is done in
order to create meaning in the incoming information. According to Bartlett, humans constantly search for meaning. Based on his research Bartlett
formulated the theory of reconstructive memory. This means that memories are not copies of experiences but rather reconstructions. This does not
mean that memory is unreliable but rather that memory can be altered by existing schemas.
The study was performed in a laboratory and can be criticized for its lack of ecological validity although it used naturalistic material rather than
nonsense material as was used in Ebbinghaus’s study. The methodology used in the study was not rigorously controlled. Participants did not receive
standardized instructions, so some of the distortions could be due to participants’ guessing or other demand characteristics. Bartlett’s study was
important at the time in that it pointed towards the possibility of studying cognitive processes like memory scientifically and the research resulted in
support for schema theory and the theory of reconstructive memory, which have been useful theories in understanding human memory and social
cognition. Bartlett is now recognized as one of the first cognitive psychologists.
Reference
Bartlett, F. (1932). Remembering: A study in Experimental and Social Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Checking for understanding
1. What is a schema?
2. According to Piaget, how do schemas play a role in learning?
3. My sister has a story that she remembers. When we were in New Jersey on holiday, we went to Sea World. There, my five-year-old sister saw a
dolphin show. The dolphins came up out of the water and frightened her. She was so upset, my father had to remove her from the audience. On that
same trip, she slipped while running near the hotel pool and fell into the water. My father had to dive in to save her. My sister's memory is that she
fell into the pool with dolphins. How can schema theory be used to explain this?
4. What does schema theory explain that Atkinson & Schiffrin’s Multi-store Model does not?
5. What does the Multi-Store Model explain that schema theory does not?
Day #2 of Schema Theory Lesson
The goal of the following activity is to give students a chance to experience Bartlett's study on the effect of schema on recall.
Activity Directions:

Get into groups of 3-4 and sit in a circle or in a line and STAY in this order, and remember what order you are in (write it down if needed)

The first student is to read the story enclosed in the envelope; only read the story once and then place it back into the envelope.
Then the first student is to WHISPER the story into the next student’s ear (like the game of telephone.) Continue this step until all group
members have heard the story from the previous group member. Have the last member write down their final version of the story. (set
this version aside; you will use it later in this activity.)

After all members have relayed and heard the story, INDIVIDUALLY respond to the following questions on a separate sheet of paper (be
sure to write what number you were at the top of the paper):
1. Which airlines were hijacked?
2. Where was it flying from and where was it flying to?
3. What was the name of the flight attendant?
4. What was the weapon that the hijacker had?
5. To which group did the hijacker belong?
6. To where did the hijacker want the plane rerouted?
7. What was the name of the pilot?
8. How was the hijacker stopped?
9. What happened at the end of the story?

After everyone has responded to all nine questions INDIVIDUALLY, take the original story out of the envelope and compare it to the
final version of the story. Discuss the changes that were made and discuss your answers to the above questions. After your group
discussion, answer the following questions (you only need to have one member record your answers):
1.
What kind of changes were made from the original story to the last version?
2.
Is there any consistent patterns? (in what ways did assimilation, leveling, and sharpening take place? Refer back the schema theory
information from day #1 of this lesson)
Debriefing
When discussing the answers, you will probably find the same results as Bartlett did in his War with Ghosts study. Students will level (eliminate
unnecessary information to simplify), sharpen (add or exaggerate details), or assimilate data (change it to fit stereotypes/pre-existing schema). It is
normal, for example, for students to switch the names of the flight attendant and pilot (assimilation), simplify the story to “he had a gun,” and to
sharpen the story – that the passengers began beating and kicking him.
Story:
On May 1 Condor Airlines flight 358 left Frankfurt to fly to Rabat. It was a cloudy day with fairly good visibility. Jack Randall was the principle flight
attendant on duty that day. As the plane took off, a man at the back of the plane stood up, brandishing a Magnum 57 pistol. He announced that he
was a member of the group “The People’s Movement for the liberation and reintegration of Cyprus.” He demanded to speak with the pilot and to re-route the plane to Malta. The flight attendant led the man up to the flight deck in order to speak to Jane Maddock, the pilot. After explaining his
situation, the pilot told him that he would have to speak to the air-traffic control in Germany. Turning away from the man, the pilot then threw the
microphone at the hijacker. He was hit in the head and fell back into the passenger area of the plane, where angry passengers took over from there.
The plane then made a U-turn and headed back to Germany where the hijacker was then arrested.
Day #3-4 of Schema Theory Lesson
The goal of the following activity is have the students research additional studies related to schema theory, and then use this information
to complete the next day’s lesson.
Activity Directions:
Below is just a short summary of the research conducted the also supports ideas related to schema theory. Using the IB study guides
and additional research (via the internet); gather a wealth of information on the following studies. Be sure to research and take notes
over the following elements of each study:




Participant Details (Age, number of participants, ethnicity, other important details/demographics)
Aim (What was the point of conducting this research? Was it trying to prove/disprove a theory or concept?)
Procedure (how was the experiment carried out? What was the process? What tasks were the participants asked to complete?)
Strengths and limitations of research (Were there any new findings? Did any stumbling blocks occur during this research/experiment?
Could it fully support the original theory?)
Additional Studies Related to Schema Theory:
Brewer & Treyens (1981): Participants were seated in an office to wait to take part in a psychological study. They did not realize that they were
already in the study. After three minutes they were called into another room and then asked what they remembered from the office. They
remembered several items that were schema congruent - that is, that matched their schema of an office, whether or not those objects were actually
in the office or not. For example, several of them remembered books, although there were not books in the office.
Anderson & Pichert (1978) Schema may assist or inhibit recall and may affect how memories are encoded. This study used two schema: the home
buyer and the burglar. When asked to recall a description of items in the house, if they were asked to switch schema for a second recall task, they
were able to remember more than those who were asked to attempt a second recall using the same schema.
Caramazza (2009): Found that from the visual cortex, information about living and non-living objects is shuttled to different parts of the brain so as to
trigger appropriate reactions - even in blind participants. These new findings suggest that the wiring that connects different areas of the visual cortex
with appropriate regions in the rest of the brain is innate - it does have to form gradually based on visual inputs. This means that our brain
automatically sorts information and classifies it, in the same manner which schema theory predicts.
Cohen (1993): Argued that the concept of schema is too vague and hypothetical to be useful. Schema cannot be observed. Even the use of fMRI
simply show brain activity, they do not clarify what exactly the individual is processing at the time.
Day #5-6 of Schema Theory Lesson
This lesson is focused on Schema Theory. The learning objective is for students to be able to write a 250 word essay on the following
prompt: Evaluate Schema Theory.
Activity Directions:
Step 1: Using the information you gathered from the previous days & the TEACUP advice below, first create an outline that answers
each question for the TEACUP acronym
*Please note that this is one of the more difficult learning objectives. Students tend to be very good and describing the theory and then evaluating the
research, but they are not good at evaluating the theory itself. Remember that when you evaluate a theory, you should consider TEACUP.
Evaluating a theory
The acronym TEACUP helps us to evaluate theories. Here is a reminder of what the acronym stands for.






Testable: Is it possible to set up experimental study to test the theory?
Empirical evidence: Is there research to support the theory? Is there research that contradicts or challenges the theory?
Applications: Can the theory be used to explain or change behavior?
Construct validity: Are the concepts that make up the theory well defined? Are they observable and measurable?
Unbiased: Is the research ethnocentric? Androcentric? Is the research upon which the theory is based representative of a global
population?
Predictive validity: Does the theory enable us to predict behavior? Can we use it to predict trends in behavior or can we use it to predict
an individual's behavior?
Step 2: After you’ve completed your outline, use it and your additional research to write a 250 word essay on the following prompt:
Evaluate Schema Theory.
Evaluation: Schema Theory
Testable: Schema theory is testable. By priming one's schema, we are able to determine whether the schema helps or interferes with learning - as
seen in the study by Anderson & Pitchert.
Empirical evidence: There is a lot of research that has supported schema theory. Above you can see the studies by Anderson & Pitchert and
Brewer & Treyens. There is also biological research to support the way in which the brain categorizes input. For example, Caramazza (2009) found
that from the visual cortex, information about living and non-living objects is shuttled to different parts of the brain so as to trigger appropriate
reactions - even in blind participants. These new findings suggest that the wiring that connects different areas of the visual cortex with appropriate
regions in the rest of the brain is innate - it does have to form gradually based on visual inputs. This means that our brain automatically sorts
information and classifies it, in the same manner which schema theory predicts.
Applications: Schema theory has been applied to help us understand how memory works. It also is helps us to understand memory distortion.
Schema theory has also been applied in abnormal psychology (Beck's research on depression), relationships (research on violence and bullying)
and in health psychology (health campaigns). It is a robust theory that has many applications across many fields of psychology.
Construct validity: Cohen (1993) argued that the concept of schema is too vague and hypothetical to be useful. Schema cannot be observed. Even
the use of fMRI simply show brain activity, they do not clarify what exactly the individual is processing at the time.
Unbiased: Schema theory is applied across cultures. There is no apparent bias in the research, although most of the early research was done in the
West.
Predictive validity: The theory helps to predict behavior. We can predict, for example, what types of information will be best recalled when given a
list of words. Trends, such as leveling and sharpening, are commonly seen in individuals recalling a news story. However, we cannot predict exactly
what an individual will recall.
Finally, another criticism of the theory is that it is not entirely clear how schemas are acquired in the first place and how they influence cognitive
processes. It is not possible to actually observe schema processing taking place within the brain.