Sample response

A schema is a mental representation that helps us to understand and predict the world that we live in. It is the way we organize categories of information and the relationships among them. Schema influence attention and learning. Piaget said that learning is a combination of accommodation (when we change schema based on new information) and assimilation (when we add change information to fit existing schema). We tend to notice things that are in line with our schema and there is the possibility that we forget or distort memories of things that are not in line with our schema.

One study that demonstrates how our schema influence our memory is a study done by Brewer & Treyens. In this study, they had 30 participants wait one at a time in an office for 35 seconds. The participants thought that they were waiting to start an experiment, but the experiment had already begun.  The room had both "schema congruent" items - that is, things that are normally in an office - and "schema incongruent items" - things that would not usually be seen in an office. In addition, there were some things that are typically in an office that were not there. When they were called into the “experiment” they were asked to write down as many items as they could recall from the office. Participants remembered items that they expected to see, that is, those things that match their schema of an office. They also made errors where they added items that were not there, but which match an office schema – for example, bookshelves with books. Things which did not match their schema – for example, a piece of bark or a screwdriver – were not remembered. This shows how our schemas – like an office schema – help us to identify and understand an office space and predict what we will find in it.

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