Schema and Memory

1
Schema and Memory

• Reconstructing of the past.

2
Recall versus Reconstruction

• Rashomon. Akira Kurosawa
• Takehiro a samurai has been murdered
• Masako his wife has been raped
• Tajomaru suspect
• Woodcutter the witness

Lie or memory bias?
3
Schema memory theories

• Bartlett (1932). Schemas are knowledge
  structures.
• All kinds of knowledge can be represented by
  schemas.
• New information is stored in relation to previous
  knowledge (TOP DOWN PROCESSING OF NEW
  INFORMATION).
• Schema theory can help to explain errors and
  distortions common in memory because we tend to
  want to normalise things in terms of existing
  knowledge.

4
Experimental supportBower, Black Turner (1979)

• Students were asked to generate a script about
  visiting a health professional.
• Later they read texts of, for example, what
  happened during a visit to a doctor or a dentist.
• 26 of actions recalled were in the original
  script but not the later text. The students also
  tended to change the order consistent with the
  original script (canonical order).

5
Encoding

• Special attention easy recall.
• Ambiguous stimuli

6
Expectancies and Interpretation

• Expectation
• Laura is warm
• Stimulus
• Smile
• Interpretation
• Warmth

• Expectation
• Laura is cold
• Stimulus
• Smile
• Interpretation
• Self-satisfaction

7
Interpretations and memory

• Recall the impression, not the behaviors.
• Forget the source of behavior

8
Unambiguous stimuli. Attention

• Schema-Congruent Information

Beliefs
Attention
Memory
Availability heuristic
9
Unambiguous stimuli.

• Schema-Congruent Information

Meaningful structure
Beliefs
Memory
Remember unconventional, creative, sensitive,
individualistic, temperamental
10
Schema memory theories

• Original theory (Bartlett, 1932)
• Information that is consistent with pre-existent
  knowledge will be remembered better than what is
  unexpected.

11
Schema-plus-tag model Graesser and Nakamura
(1982)

• New knowledge is stored with the prior knowledge
  and a set of tags which indicate atypical and
  irrelevant pieces of information contained in
  it. 
• Atypical events that are specifically tagged are
  therefore easier to recognise. 

12
Unambiguous stimuli. Attention

• Schema-Incongruent Information

Beliefs
Attention to unexpected
Memory
13
Unambiguous stimuli.

• Schema-Incongruent Information

Meaningful structure (Working hard to reconcile)
Beliefs
Memory
When no time to elaborate the information
recall advantage disappears.
14
Congruent or Incongruent?

• Stangor and McMillan (1992)
• High motivation, elaboration Incongruent
• Low elaboration Congruent
• Both congruent and incongruent gt not relevant

15
Memory accuracy

• Goal to be accurate more attention to the
  information.

16
Flashbulb memories

• Vivid recollections of the circumstances
  surrounding highly emotional events.

Why?
17
Flashbulb memories

• Emotional significance
• stress hormones contribute to memorability.
• Working harder to make sense of the event.
• Public and private rehearsals

18
Expectancies during the retrieval

• Cohen, 1981 Forming expectations before or after
  the event (librarian vs. waitress).

Selection bias
Expectancies
19
Current knowledge

• Hindsight bias
• Once we know that something has happened, we
  believe that we knew so all along.
• Why? Reinterpretation of past ambiguous events
  according to the current knowledge.

20
Self-serving bias in memory

• We selectively retrieve those memories that match
  the desired self-view.
• Sanitioso, Kunda Fong, 1990
• IV Motivation to be introvert or extrovert
• Results More memories that support having the
  desired trait.

21
Theories about stability or change

• We tend to believe that we are stable in some
  domains and different on other domains.

22
Exaggerating the Consistency between past and
present

• Ross et al, 1981.
• Procedure
• Message about dental hygiene toothbrushing vs.
  floss.
• Results
• Reported more or less toothbrushing in the past.

23
Exaggerating the Difference between the Past and
the Present

• E.g. Satisfaction with a useless self-improvement
  program.

24
Mood

• Mood-congruency effect
• When we are happy, we are likely to recall happy
  events
• Depressed people more negative memories.
• Mood dependancy effect
• We are likely to recall events experienced in a
  similar mood.

25
Sleeper-effect

• Forgetting the source of information.
• Circumstances
• Persuasive communication
• Persuasive discrediting information
• Optimal time delay (source is forgotten, but not
  the message)

26
Conclusion Schema and Memory

• Memories are reconstructions of the past.
• Our state of mind and external circumstances
  during the encoding and retrieval of the
  information affect the way we recall our past.