Cognitive assumption schemas Flashcards
Define what are ‘schemas’
These are packets of information that are built up through experience and stored in our long term memory.
They help us to make sense of the world, providing short cuts to identifying things that we come across
Explain what are ‘schemas’
Schemas can be refined through further interactions with people and the world around us and do not necessarily represent reality as they are built up via social exchanges – conversations with others, exposure to the media, rather than our own personal interactions. They can contain our expectation and stereotypes. When we ‘open up’ a schema, we UNWITTINGLY use the information we find in it.
Examples of ‘schemas’
Bartlett illustrated the role that schemas can play in the distortion of memory.
*Participants were asked to memorise a short story called ‘the war of the ghosts’. The story comes from a Native American tradition, whilst the participants were British.
*The participants attempted to fit the story into their western schemas and, as a result, distorted it during recall.
*This showed that they were not recalling the information exactly as it had been presented to them, instead their schemas distorted their memory
