Schema Theory

Schema theory describes how we create psychological representations to perceive and understand reality, whether it is reality in the outer world of people and things, or reality in the inner world. A psychological schema is the perceptual structure we use to make sense of the world around us. A schema is like a network, where different ideas and perceptions are connected in different ways. Everyone has their own personal schema. When they get a perception, they try to fit into their own schema. The perceptual structure, the context, and gives meaning to what they see. Schema theory is important in many ways, such as learning or communication.  

Bartlett experiment was to remember a story called "The War of the Ghost". During recalling of the story, the participants do not remember of details in the story, and they kind of change the story to fit on their sense. The phenomenon became overt, that participants gave up their details to make sense of the information. The conclusion of this experiment lucidly conveyed the schema theory. The demonstration of human memory, that memory can reconstruct following the schema. Bartlett accomplished that people follow along the schema theory or insensitive mental structure that shows one’s general information and though that, memory is affected.

French and Richards experiment showed the study of influence of schemata on memory retrieval. There would be three participants. The three participants were shown a clock with roman numeric symbols. First participant were shown a clock and then asked to draw the clock from memory, asked second participant to remember the clocks and draw, and asked third participant just to draw the clock. The first two participants reverted to the conventional IV notation, but third participants, the IIII notation. French and Richards explained this result in terms of schemata knowledge of roman numerical effecting participant memory retrieval.  

Loftus and Palmer experiment was the test of language. The participants were shown film clips of traffic accidents. After they seen the film, and asked them to answer some question about just what they seen. The question was the critical question; it was to do with the speed of the car involved in the collision. There were five questions, but they changed the verb in each five questions such as smashed, bumped, hit, collided and contacted. The result of the experiment shows the information of the memory can mix up with other memory.

 

The case of Ronald Cotton, Jennifer Thompson was victim. Thompson stated that Ronald Cotton is rapist. After the examination, it found out that her memory was wrong. Because her witness is not true, it proved by eyewitness testimony.   

To sum up, memory can change it. The schema theory both helps and hinders the accurate recall of memory. As I mentioned above, schema theory has an advantage or disadvantage for people's memory.