Psych 350 Exam 3 UPDATED Exam
Questions and CORRECT Answers
Schemas - CORRECT ANSWER - - Schemas summarize knowledge about persons,
places, etc.
- Part of semantic memory.
- The current situation acts as a retrieval cue to call up a schema.
- A schema exists in one person's head, but people in the same culture often share schemas.
Schema Example - Downtown area of a US city - CORRECT ANSWER - - Do you think
you'll have trouble finding an ATM for cash?
- What about finding a place to sit with a coffee and some kind of pastry?
Will there be a used car lot?
- Will there be homes with an acre of front lawn?
How do schemas influence new situations, and what is a potential drawback? - CORRECT
ANSWER - -Schemas summarize knowledge about people, place, etc., and the current
situation can cue a relevant schema
Benefit: allows you to apply what you know to a new situation
Drawback: can be misleading if you assume too much similarity between your schema and the
current situation
Scripts - CORRECT ANSWER - a special type of schema summarizing typical actions in
a given context
- sequence of things-to-do at a restaurant, a dentist's appointment, etc.
How does an active schema influence encoding, storing, and retrieving information? -
CORRECT ANSWER - Selection, Abstraction, Interpretation, Integration
,Selection - CORRECT ANSWER - pay more attention to events that are schema-relevant,
but also to events that are very unexpected in the schema context
Abstraction - CORRECT ANSWER - Schema assist in storing the gist as opposed to
verbatim details
Interpretation - CORRECT ANSWER - New information is interpreted in terms of prior
knowledge from long-term memory (the schema)
Integration - CORRECT ANSWER - New information stored together with old schema,
so that the schema is modified (slowly, gradually)
Brewer and Treyens' (1981) - CORRECT ANSWER - - study on selective encoding based
on a schema
- subjects waited in a grad students office with:
-- typical items: desk, file cabinet, phone
-- unusual items: fossil skull, blender,
-- neither typical nor unusual: umbrella
Recall test: asked to recall what is in the office
- could they recall typical, unusual, or neutral items?
- intrusions: subjects often recalled typical items that were not actually there, highlighting
scheme-driven memory
What did Bransford & Johnson (1972) study on selective encoding investigate? - CORRECT
ANSWER - Study setup: Participants read vague paragraphs with and informative title
provided either before, after, or not at all.
Tasks: recall as much as possible about the paragraph
,Key question: How do we know this is about encoding only?
How did schema (title) influence recall in Bransford & Johnsons (1972) "Doing Laundry" study?
- CORRECT ANSWER - Participants read a vague paragraph about "doing laundry"
Idea units recalled:
- no title: 2.7 units
- title after reading: 2.8 units
- title before reading: 5.8 units
Conclusions: Providing a title before reading improved encoding and recall, highlighting that
context helps organize information effectively
How did Anderson & Pichert's (1978) study demonstrate the influence of schema on both
encoding and retrieval? - CORRECT ANSWER - Setup: Subjects took the perspective of
either a burglar or a homebuyer
Study phase: Heard a house description with details relevant to each perspective (e.g., leaky roof
for homebuyer, owners out late for burglar)
Recall test: Subjects wrote down everything they remembered
Perspective switch: Half kept the original perspective; half switched
Results: Those who switched perspectives recalled both types of details and remembered more
overall than those who kept one perspective
What are schemas, and how are they formed? - CORRECT ANSWER - - schemas are
meaningful, organized information stored in long-term memory
- formed from repeated occurrences of similar material
- people extract regular, repeating information across occurrences and store it as a schema
, - schemas don't have to be true; they reflect what a person thinks are the common elements
across events.
How do social stereotypes as schemas impact seleciton? - CORRECT ANSWER -
Schema/stereotype: gay men are believed to work in "caring occupations"
Impact on selection:
- notice schema-consistent roles like nurse, nannies, hairdressers
- notice schema-inconsistent roles like police officers, soldiers
- often ignore gay men in roles such as lawyers, factory workers, athletes etc.
How do social stereotypes as schema impact interpretation? - CORRECT ANSWER -
Schema/stereotype: gay men are believed to work in "caring occupations"
Impact on interpretation:
- may reinterpret actions of gay men in schema-inconsistent roles (e.g., police officers, soldiers)
to fit the "caring" stereotype, attributing their actions to a desire to help, thus reinforcing the
schema.
What are prototypes in the context of perceptual schemas? - CORRECT ANSWER - -
prototypes are perceptual schemas
- formed by extracting similarities from perceptual input
- represent the average look or sound of members of a category
How is a dog prototype formed? - CORRECT ANSWER - - By seeing various dogs,
people form a mental "average" image, or prototype, of a dog
- This prototype represents the typical characteristics of all the dogs they've encountered
What did Posner & Keele's study on prototypes with random dot patterns reveal? - CORRECT
ANSWER - Study design: Participants learned to classify random dot patterns, identifying
whether each pattern was an "A" or not
Questions and CORRECT Answers
Schemas - CORRECT ANSWER - - Schemas summarize knowledge about persons,
places, etc.
- Part of semantic memory.
- The current situation acts as a retrieval cue to call up a schema.
- A schema exists in one person's head, but people in the same culture often share schemas.
Schema Example - Downtown area of a US city - CORRECT ANSWER - - Do you think
you'll have trouble finding an ATM for cash?
- What about finding a place to sit with a coffee and some kind of pastry?
Will there be a used car lot?
- Will there be homes with an acre of front lawn?
How do schemas influence new situations, and what is a potential drawback? - CORRECT
ANSWER - -Schemas summarize knowledge about people, place, etc., and the current
situation can cue a relevant schema
Benefit: allows you to apply what you know to a new situation
Drawback: can be misleading if you assume too much similarity between your schema and the
current situation
Scripts - CORRECT ANSWER - a special type of schema summarizing typical actions in
a given context
- sequence of things-to-do at a restaurant, a dentist's appointment, etc.
How does an active schema influence encoding, storing, and retrieving information? -
CORRECT ANSWER - Selection, Abstraction, Interpretation, Integration
,Selection - CORRECT ANSWER - pay more attention to events that are schema-relevant,
but also to events that are very unexpected in the schema context
Abstraction - CORRECT ANSWER - Schema assist in storing the gist as opposed to
verbatim details
Interpretation - CORRECT ANSWER - New information is interpreted in terms of prior
knowledge from long-term memory (the schema)
Integration - CORRECT ANSWER - New information stored together with old schema,
so that the schema is modified (slowly, gradually)
Brewer and Treyens' (1981) - CORRECT ANSWER - - study on selective encoding based
on a schema
- subjects waited in a grad students office with:
-- typical items: desk, file cabinet, phone
-- unusual items: fossil skull, blender,
-- neither typical nor unusual: umbrella
Recall test: asked to recall what is in the office
- could they recall typical, unusual, or neutral items?
- intrusions: subjects often recalled typical items that were not actually there, highlighting
scheme-driven memory
What did Bransford & Johnson (1972) study on selective encoding investigate? - CORRECT
ANSWER - Study setup: Participants read vague paragraphs with and informative title
provided either before, after, or not at all.
Tasks: recall as much as possible about the paragraph
,Key question: How do we know this is about encoding only?
How did schema (title) influence recall in Bransford & Johnsons (1972) "Doing Laundry" study?
- CORRECT ANSWER - Participants read a vague paragraph about "doing laundry"
Idea units recalled:
- no title: 2.7 units
- title after reading: 2.8 units
- title before reading: 5.8 units
Conclusions: Providing a title before reading improved encoding and recall, highlighting that
context helps organize information effectively
How did Anderson & Pichert's (1978) study demonstrate the influence of schema on both
encoding and retrieval? - CORRECT ANSWER - Setup: Subjects took the perspective of
either a burglar or a homebuyer
Study phase: Heard a house description with details relevant to each perspective (e.g., leaky roof
for homebuyer, owners out late for burglar)
Recall test: Subjects wrote down everything they remembered
Perspective switch: Half kept the original perspective; half switched
Results: Those who switched perspectives recalled both types of details and remembered more
overall than those who kept one perspective
What are schemas, and how are they formed? - CORRECT ANSWER - - schemas are
meaningful, organized information stored in long-term memory
- formed from repeated occurrences of similar material
- people extract regular, repeating information across occurrences and store it as a schema
, - schemas don't have to be true; they reflect what a person thinks are the common elements
across events.
How do social stereotypes as schemas impact seleciton? - CORRECT ANSWER -
Schema/stereotype: gay men are believed to work in "caring occupations"
Impact on selection:
- notice schema-consistent roles like nurse, nannies, hairdressers
- notice schema-inconsistent roles like police officers, soldiers
- often ignore gay men in roles such as lawyers, factory workers, athletes etc.
How do social stereotypes as schema impact interpretation? - CORRECT ANSWER -
Schema/stereotype: gay men are believed to work in "caring occupations"
Impact on interpretation:
- may reinterpret actions of gay men in schema-inconsistent roles (e.g., police officers, soldiers)
to fit the "caring" stereotype, attributing their actions to a desire to help, thus reinforcing the
schema.
What are prototypes in the context of perceptual schemas? - CORRECT ANSWER - -
prototypes are perceptual schemas
- formed by extracting similarities from perceptual input
- represent the average look or sound of members of a category
How is a dog prototype formed? - CORRECT ANSWER - - By seeing various dogs,
people form a mental "average" image, or prototype, of a dog
- This prototype represents the typical characteristics of all the dogs they've encountered
What did Posner & Keele's study on prototypes with random dot patterns reveal? - CORRECT
ANSWER - Study design: Participants learned to classify random dot patterns, identifying
whether each pattern was an "A" or not
