The Schema

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Topic 8

• The Schema

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References

• Bower, Gordon H, Experiments on Story
  Comprehension and Recall', Discourse Processes, 1
  (1978) 211-231.
• Gombrich, Ernst. Art and Illusion. London
  Phaidon Press, 1960/1977.
• Kant, Immanuel. The Critique of Pure Reason.
  Trans. by J.M.D. Meiklejohn. London Dent,
  1781/1934.
• Thorndyke, Perry Frank R. Yekovich, A Critique
  of Schema-Based Theories of Human Story Memory',
  Poetics 9 (1980) 23-49.
• van Dijk, Teun A., Text and Context. London
  Longman, 1977.

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What is a Schema?
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History of the Concept Kant

• The concept of the schema was introduced by
  Immanuel Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason
  (1781/1934 see eg., p. 119).

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History of the Concept Bartlett

• The first significant use of the concept in
  modern psychology is by Frederick Bartlett in his
  book Remembering, in which, in his experiments
  with the Amerindian story The War of the
  Ghosts, he hypothesised that the recall and
  comprehension of the story were affected by
  schemas, which had their origins in the
  sociocultural world.

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History of the Concept Gombrich

• Bartlett's conception is borrowed by Ernst
  Gombrich in his book Art and Illusion, where it
  is used in relation to art criticism. Gombrich's
  book is perhaps the most significant mid-century
  use of the concept of the schema in aesthetics.

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Frames and Scripts Use in Artificial Intelligence

• Frames and scripts are concepts used in
  artificial intelligence (see respectively,
  Minsky, and Schank Abelson).

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Frames and Scripts What Are They?

• More prototypical versions of schemas (see
  prototype, later in the lecture), and are more
  widely stored in a given form by members of a
  particular sociocultural community.
• A distinction is sometimes made between frames
  and scripts
• Frames are more spatial, whereas scripts refer to
  process models only.

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Slots and Fillers

• The concepts of frames and scripts (and most
  other schemas) can be more easily understood if
  one thinks of slots and fillers.
• The slots of a frame or script are arranged in a
  meaningful order.
• These slots however, may have different fillers.
• Thus two objects may look different, due to the
  use of different fillers, but they are
  meaningfully the same, as they have the same
  frame, or the same configuration of slots
  arranged in a meaningful order.

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Slots and Fillers Logical Status

• It has been said that the slots involved in
  frames and scripts have a force which is
  weaker than necessary or sufficient conditions.
  
• They are thus concepts that are not entirely
  explicable in terms of formal logic.
• At any rate, the strong link of frames and
  scripts with society and culture, makes whatever
  connection they may have with formal logic rather
  tenuous.

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Missing Links and Default Values

• Schemas in general provide us with the discoursal
  missing links, which provide the connections
  between concepts in a text.
• An important related idea in schema theory is
  that of default values or assignments, which are
  assumed if no evidence to the contrary is found.

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The Prototype

• Ostriches and chickens, for example, are not
  prototypical birds, as they are incapable of
  flight.
• Prototypes may be useful for the understanding of
  popular fiction for example, for the
  understanding of how certain stock characters
  function in such works.

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Long Range Schemas

• Among the most important are plans, which are
  hypothetical schemas used to speculate on how
  something which the person has no previous
  experience of could be done. A plan may involve
  a speculative arrangement or rearrangement of
  scripts.

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Long Range Schemas Narrative Understanding

• Our understanding of narrative itself can be
  described as dependent on a long-range schema or
  set of schemas.
• The plot extends throughout the narrative.
• It is not merely what is there in the text, but
  arises from an interactive process between
  producer and respondent which is dependent on the
  schema for its realization.

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Narrative Schemas Production and Reception

• This process can be viewed from both the angles
  of production and reception.
• In production, one thinks of a plot in terms of a
  schematic arrangement which could be used for the
  narrative that one wants to create.
• From the perspective of reception, ones response
  to the plot is a speculative arrangement of a
  schema or set of schemas which one feels can be
  used for the narrative at hand.

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Significance of Schema Theory to Narrative
Studies

• One is not merely dependent on the text in our
  understanding of narrative, but understanding a
  narrative is an interactive process. The process
  of understanding is psychological, and is not
  merely a simple reflection of what is there in
  the text.

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Qns

• 1. Refer to the cartoons again. To what extent
  is our understanding of them dependent on
  schemas? Can you attempt to isolate some of
  these schemas?
• 2. Look at some of the fables given for lecture 1
  again. Are any of these fables responsible for
  certain schemas we use for the understanding of
  stories?

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THE COCK AND THE PEARL
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THE WOLF AND THE LAMB
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End of Lecture