Schema Theory
War of the ghosts
One night two young men from Egulac went down to the
river to hunt seals and while they were there it
became foggy and calm. Then they heard war-cries, and
they thought: "Maybe this is a war-party". They
escaped to the shore, and hid behind a log. Now canoes
came up, and they heard the noise of paddles, and
saw one canoe coming up to them. There were five men
in the canoe, and they said:
"What do you think? We wish to take you along. We are
going up the river to make war on the people."
War of the ghosts
One of the young men said,"I have no arrows."
"Arrows are in the canoe," they said.
I will not go along. I might be killed. My relatives do not know
where I have gone. But you," he said,
turning to the other, "may go with them."
So one of the young men went, but the other returned home.
And the warriors went on up the river to a town on the other side
of Kalama. The people came down to
the water and they began to fight, and many were killed. But
presently the young man heard one of the …
War of the ghosts
… warriors say, "Quick, let us go home: that Indian has been
hit." Now he thought: "Oh, they are ghosts.“
He did not feel sick, but they said he had been shot.
So the canoes went back to Egulac and the young man went
ashore to his house and made a fire. And he
told everybody and said: "Behold I accompanied the ghosts,
and we went to fight. Many of our fellows
were killed, and many of those who attacked us were killed.
They said I was hit, and I did not feel sick."
War of the ghosts
He told it all, and then he became quiet. When the sun rose he
fell down. Something black came out of his
mouth. His face became contorted. The people jumped up and
cried.
He was dead.
Bartlett (1932)
Participants heard an unfamiliar North American
folk tale
Afterwards, they were asked to retell the story
many times
The recalled story was distorted in a number of
ways; specifically alterations and omissions,
changes in length and words
The retelling of the story was influenced by the
participants’ personal cultural background
Learning Outcomes (from AP Syllabus)
Evaluate schema
theory with reference
to research studies
What is schema
theory ?
What is schema theory?
The term schema was first
used by Jean Piaget in
1926. (but there have
been many with similar
ideas before him)
Explains how people
develop ideas from simple
ideas into complex ones
Schemas are formed and
revised by relating
experiences to each other
The construction of schemas
according to Jean Piaget
We try to understand a new or different
object or concept by using one of our preexisting schemas
During assimilation, we try to fit new objects
into existing schemas (a type of recognition,
it provides us with comfort and security)
During accommodation, we change our
schemas to fit the characteristics of a new
object (learning)
Schema activity
1.
A child sees a chihuahua for the first time and
incorporates it into his schema of a dog. Is this an
example of assimilation or accommodation?
2.
A child calls a cat a dog because it has four legs but
is corrected. Is this an example of assimilation or
accommodation?
Schema Theory
What is a Schema?
“A mental model or representation built
up through experience about a person,
an object, a situation, or an event.”
(Head, 1920)
“Organized structures of knowledge
and expectations of some aspect of the
world.” (Bartlett, 1932)
Schema of an “egg”
What is a schema ?
Schema theory seeks to explain our interpretation of
the world from a psychological perspective, which
stems from cognitive science.
Schemas (or schemata) are cognitive structures
(mental templates or frames) that represent a
person's knowledge about objects, people or
situations.
Schemas 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.
What is a schema ?
Schemas are used to organize our knowledge, to
assist recall, to guide our behavior, to predict likely
happenings and to help us to make sense of current
experiences.
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 'Story of the
ghosts'.
A schema can be seen as a kind of framework with
'slots' for 'variables', some of them filled-in and
others empty.
What is a schema ?
Schema theory predicts that we interpret our
experiences The slots are either filled in already with
compulsory values (e.g. that a dog is an animal) or
'default values' (e.g. that a dog has four legs) or are
empty (optional variables) until ' instantiated' with
values from the current situation (e.g. that the dog's
colour is black).
When what seems like the most appropriate schema
is activated, inferences are generated to fill in any
necessary but inexplicit details with assumed values
from the schema.
If no relevant schema is retrieved from long-term
memory a new schema is created. Explicit events
and inferences, as well as new schemas, are stored
in long-tern memory.
Schema-driven processing is a top-down perceptual
process that guides a selective search for data
relevant to the expectations set up by the schema.
Schema-driven processing interacts with bottomup data-driven processes (which may lead to the
activation, modification or generation of a schema).
Schema theory is consistent with the
notion of both perception and recall as
constructive and selective cognitive
processes.
Schemas are culturally specific: schemas
for common routines vary socioculturally- even within a single country.
General comment on schema theory
Finally, one of the main problems of the
schema theory is that it is often very difficult
to define what a schema is.
Cohen (1993) points out that "the whole idea
of a schema is too vague to be useful' and
argues that schema theory provides no
explanation of how schemas work.
Schemas are untestable
Schema processing is not fully understood
General comment on
schema theory
Nevertheless, there is enough research to
suggest schemas do affect memory processes &
knowledge, both in a positive and negative
sense.
They do simplify reality, and help us to make
sense of current experiences. Schemas are
useful concepts in helping us understand how
we organize our knowledge.
Write down as many items as you
can remember
What did you
remember?
Chair?:
Chair?: 9
Desk?:
Desk?: 9
Skull?
Skull? 6
Wine bottle?
Wine bottle? 3
Coffee pot?
Coffee pot? 2
Wine basket?
Wine basket? 1
Books?
Books? 2