Effect of Schemas on Drawing a Clock
Title
An investigation of the effects of schemas on drawing a clock.
Introduction
A schema according to Henry Gleitman (2007) is a mental representation that summarises what we know about a certain event or situation. Schemas reflect the fact that many aspects of our experience are redundant and schemas seek to provide a summary of this redundancy.
When an individual encounters an event or situation, they seek to understand it by relating it to a schema. Schemas are useful not only in providing meaning in an experience, but also filling in the gaps resulting from a failure to notice all the details of an event or situation. However, reliance on schematic knowledge can lead to memory error, hence causing an individual to remember the past as being more regular and orderly than the reality.
In an experiment, participants who waited briefly in a professor’s office were asked, seconds later, to recall the contents in the office. One-third of the participants recalled seeing books in the office, even though none were present (Brewer & Treyens, 1981). In this case the memory error is in line with participants’ expectation of what should be in a professor’s office.
Research shows that people have a very poor memory for familiar everyday objects. As in the case of Nickerson & Anderson (1979) who conducted a study where American subjects were asked to draw from memory what they would expect to find on each side of a United States penny. The study showed that out of the eight critical features on the coin, on average only three were recalled accurately. Furthermore out of the three features recalled they were often mislocated.
Similarly, Morris (1988) showed that only 15% of his British subjects were able to correctly recognise the correct appearance of a ten pence coin. Furthermore Bekerian & Baddeley (1980) found that a campaign to inform radio listeners of a new set of wavelengths for radio broadcasts failed to a have the required effect.
These
An investigation of the effects of schemas on drawing a clock.
Introduction
A schema according to Henry Gleitman (2007) is a mental representation that summarises what we know about a certain event or situation. Schemas reflect the fact that many aspects of our experience are redundant and schemas seek to provide a summary of this redundancy.
When an individual encounters an event or situation, they seek to understand it by relating it to a schema. Schemas are useful not only in providing meaning in an experience, but also filling in the gaps resulting from a failure to notice all the details of an event or situation. However, reliance on schematic knowledge can lead to memory error, hence causing an individual to remember the past as being more regular and orderly than the reality.
In an experiment, participants who waited briefly in a professor’s office were asked, seconds later, to recall the contents in the office. One-third of the participants recalled seeing books in the office, even though none were present (Brewer & Treyens, 1981). In this case the memory error is in line with participants’ expectation of what should be in a professor’s office.
Research shows that people have a very poor memory for familiar everyday objects. As in the case of Nickerson & Anderson (1979) who conducted a study where American subjects were asked to draw from memory what they would expect to find on each side of a United States penny. The study showed that out of the eight critical features on the coin, on average only three were recalled accurately. Furthermore out of the three features recalled they were often mislocated.
Similarly, Morris (1988) showed that only 15% of his British subjects were able to correctly recognise the correct appearance of a ten pence coin. Furthermore Bekerian & Baddeley (1980) found that a campaign to inform radio listeners of a new set of wavelengths for radio broadcasts failed to a have the required effect.
These
References: Baddeley, A. (1990). Human Memory: Theory and Practice. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.(See pages 335-347). Brewer, W.F., & Treyens, J.C. (1981). Role of schemata in the memory for places. Cognitive Psychology, 13, 207-230. French, C. C. Richards, A. (1993). Clock this! An everyday example of a schema-driven error in memory. British Journal of Psychology, 84, 249-253. Morris, P. E. (1988). Expertise and everyday memory. In M. M. Gruneberg, P. E. Sykes (Eds.) Practical aspects of memory: Current research and issues, Vol 1. Chichester: Wiley. Gleitman, H. (2007). Psychology. (Seventh edition)Norton & Company. Nickerson, R. S. & Adams, M. J. (1982). Long-term memory for a common object. In U. Neisser (Ed.) Memory observed: Remembering in natural contexts. San Francisco: Freeman. Richards, A., French, C.C., & Harris, P.R. (1996). Does clock-watching make you clockwise. Memory, 4, 49-58. Richards, A., French, C.C., & Harris, P.R. (1998). Mistakes around the clock: Errors in memory for the orientation of numerals. The Journal of Psychology, 132, 42-46. Howell, D. C. (2007). Statistical Methods For Psychology. (Seventh edition) Cengage Wadsworth.