Download Evaluate schema theory with reference to research

Evaluate schema theory with reference to research studies
A schema is a cognitive structure that provides a framework for
organizing information about the world, events, people and actions.
According to the British psychologist Ferderic Bartlett, he defines
schema in short as a mental representation of knowledge. There are
multiple types of schemas: scripts that are schemas that provide
information about the sequence of events;
self-schemas that organize information we have about ourselves and social
schemas that represent information about groups of people, which is
known as stereotypes.
However, what goes into each particular schema is largely dependent on
every individual’s cultural. Bartlett has also suggested that memory is not
like a tape recorder, but rather that people remember in terms of meaning
and what makes sense to them. Therefore, people tend to have problem
remembering a story from another culture, and that they would
reconstruct the story to fit in with their own cultural schemas. If they story
doesn’t make sense, the brain fills in the blanks based on existing schemas,
or it simply invents something that seems to fit in, which can result in
mistakes – called distortion.
An experiment study was carried out, to study the effect of schemas on
memory by Bartlett, in 1932. Twenty English participants were asked to read
“The War of the Ghosts”, a Native American folk tale, and recall the story.
The result was that each time the participants were asked to recall the story,
it got shorted. After 6 times of reproducing the story, it had been reduced
from 330 words to 180. Not only had the participants made the story
shorter, but had also added their own interpretation of certain aspects
unimportant or incoherent in a typical, western story. It shows that memory
recall is influenced by our pre-existing knowledge, or our schema, which is
influenced by our cultural background.
Then again, lots of researchers have supported the idea that schemas
affect cognitive processes, such as memory. The theory seems quite useful
for understanding how people categorize information, interpret stories,
and make inferences, among other things. Schema theory has contributed
to an understanding of memory distortions as well as social cognition.
However, the theory is not clear about how schemas are acquired in the
first place, how they actually influence cognitive processes and that the
concept of schemas is too vague to be useful.
Evaluate two models or theories of one cognitive process with
reference to research studies
The two models or theories I will be looking for the cognitive process of
Memory are the Multi Store Memory Model and the Level of Processing
Model. I will be discussing the strengths and limitations of the model and
the theory as well as including a few research studies to support my
argument.
The Multi Store Memory Model (MSMM) was founded by Atkinson and
Shiffrin (1968) and was one of the first models on the structure of memory. It
shows that something you remember begins as environmental stimuli and is
then passed on as sensory memory. If the person is focusing on it or if it is
believed to be important, it is passed on to the Short-term memory with its
duration of 6-12 seconds. It is only through rehearsal that information can be
moved to the Long- term memory. Once stored in the Long-term memory,
the information can be retrieved and passed back to the short-term memory
and then back again.
The MSMM allowed most of the development on memory research and it
outlines a very basic structure of the memory systems that other research
has only develop. Besides, with the evidence of the case study of HM, the
model shows the distinction between STM and LTM. Some patients have
problems with STM but not LTM, and some may have problems with LTM
but not STM. It also tells that encoding is different in both memory stores.
In STM memory is encoded acoustically while in LTM, memory is encoded
semantically.
Then again, with the development in technology and in psychology it has
been shown that although the model’s main claim is still accepted the
model gives a very simplistic view of how the memory works and is largely
wrong at some points. The importance of rehearsal for storage in the longterm memory has been questioned by Craik and Lockhart (1972) and it has
also been found that the Long-term memory store is divided into different
sections specializing in the storage of different types of memory. The MSM
has also been criticized due to the fact that the model does not go into any
detail about the processing of information in exception to the reference of
attention and rehearsal.
On the other hand, the level of processing model of memory by Craik and
Lockhart, in 1972 was put forward partly as a result of the criticism
leveled at the multi-store model. Instead of concentrating on the
stores/structures involved such as short term and long term memory,
this theory concentrates on the processes involved in memory. Craik and
Lockhart suggest that we can process information in 3 ways: first,
structural processing which we encode only the physical qualities of a
thing; second, phonemic processing, which is
when we encode its sound and third, semantic processing, which happens
when we encode the meaning of a word and relate it to similar words with
similar meaning. In short, the idea that the way information is encoded
affects how well it is remembered. The deeper the level of processing, the
easier the information is to recall.
Craik and Tulving carried out a psychology study in 1975 to
investigate how deep and shallow processing affects memory recall.
Participants were presented with a series of 60 words about which
they had to answer one of three questions. Some questions required
the participants to process the word in a deep way (semantic) and
others in a shallow way (structural and phonemic).
When Participants were asked to recall, they recalled more words that were
semantically processed compared to phonemically and visually processed
words. This experiment proves that semantically processed words involve
elaboration rehearsal and deep processing which results in more accurate
recall.
The theory is an improvement on Atkinson and Shiffirin’s account of transfer
from STM and LTM. The levels of processing model change the direction of
memory research. It shows that encoding was not simple, straightforward
process. This widened the focus from seeing long-term memory as a simple
storage unit to seeing it as a complex processing system. Besides, this
explanatin of memory is useful in everyday life because it highlights the way
in which elaboration, which requires deeper processing of information, can
aid memory.
Then again, despite these strengths, there are a number of criticisms of the
levels of processing theory. It does not explain how the deeper processing
result in better memories. Eysenck (1990) claims that the levels of
processing theory describes rather than explains. Deeper processing takes
more effort than shallow processing and it could be this, rather than the
depth of processing that makes it more likely people will remember
something. Lastly, the concept of depth is vague and cannot be observed.
Therefore, it cannot be objectively measured.