William F. Brewer’s research while affiliated with University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and other places

What children know about discourse and its conventions before they start to read may influence their acquisition of reading skill.

Defining schemas as higher order cognitive structures that serve a crucial role in providing an account of how old knowledge interacts with new in perception, language, thought, and memory, this paper offers an analytic account of the nature and functions of schemas in psychological theory and organizes some of the experimental evidence dealing with the operation of schemas in memory. The paper is organized into six sections, the first of which provides a detailed examination of the schema concept as formulated by F. C. Bartlett in 1932. The second section relates Bartlett's theory to the larger issue of the conflict in psychological theory between ideas from British Empiricism and ideas from Continental philosophy. The third section briefly outlines some of the basic theoretical assumptions of information processing psychology to serve as a background for an analysis of schema theory, and the fourth examines modern schema theory, and contrasts it with Bartlett's theory and with the information processing approach. The fifth section discusses the nature of schemas, specifically mentioning ontological assumptions, modularity, ecological validity, and phenomenal experience, while the final section develops a framework for analyzing the functions of schemas in the memory process, and then examines a number of recent experiments in terms of this framework. A 16-page bibliography is included. (FL)

Bibliography: leaves 72-87 Supported in part by the National Institute of Education under contract no. 400-81-0030

This chapter presents an analysis of the structure of human memory. It focuses on the process of recall of information from long-term memory. Common forms of memory such as personal memory, semantic memory, and rote linguistic skills are described in the chapter. A skill is the ability to carry out a practiced motor performance or cognitive operation. There is typically no experience of mental imagery when skilled actions are carried out. Three important types of skills are motor skills, cognitive skills, and rote linguistic skills. Data from a phenomenal experience is given equal status with the other forms of data typically gathered in experiments on human memory. In working out the analysis of the structure of memory, a constant tension between a view of memory as the reliving of earlier perceptions and a view of memory as a schema-based reconstructive process is felt. Many of the classic theories of human memory have achieved simplicity by ignoring the actual complexity of the phenomena and by attempting to give a simple image account, a simple interference account, or a simple propositional account.

Compared videotaped actions that were embedded in a plan schema with actions not embedded in a plan schema (e.g., opening a drawer vs opening a drawer in order to take out a stapler). 102 college students were tested for their memory of actions seen on tape; the actions were embedded or not in a schema. Exp I showed that actions in schema were recalled better than were the actions not in a schema, but high recognition scores were found for both types in a visual recognition task. Findings are interpreted as showing that plan schemata are used in the retrieval process. Exp II showed that after 48 hrs, actions seen embedded in a schema were recognized better than were items not in a schema. This finding is interpreted as resulting from the plan schema either (a) serving to preserve the representation or (b) enabling Ss to recall overall goal and give high recognition responses to subordinate actions in an in-order-to relation with the remembered goal. Exp III studied recognition memory of new subordinate actions embedded in old schemata. Ss made false recognition responses, suggesting that plan schemata were not serving to preserve surface information. Data on loss of memory over time suggest that information about actions is lost from the hierarchical plan structure from the bottom up, leaving successively more abstract information about plans and goals in memory. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

This paper proposes that theory construction in the area of stories must distinguish between theories of plan comprehension, theories of narrative comprehension, and theories of the story schema. Evidence is provided which suggests that a number of theoretical and empirical findings that have been taken to contribute to theories of the story schema are better interpreted as relating to plan comprehension and narrative comprehension. The paper suggests that theory evaluation in this area must take into account the discourse force of the genre being investigated. The authors propose that stories are a subclass of narratives that have entertainment as their primary discourse force. Finally, a structural-affect theory is outlined and evidence is given to suggest that this theory gives a partial account of the reader's story schema.

A new classification of English article (a, the, null) usage was developed. On the basis of this classification scheme, data on article usage were obtained from both adults and children, including children in the initial period of article acquisition (2-3 years). In the results, an early acquisition sequence was found of no article use, a use only, essentially correct a and the patterns of use, and overextended the use. This overuse of the definite article, found only for the more mature children in this study, has also been reported in previous studies on the articles. However, with the more complete usage data and the younger age range used in this study, the overuse was shown to be selective, occurring in 1 usage category and after a period of essentially correct use. From these findings it is argued that an explanation based on egocentrism is not adequate. It is suggested here that the incorrect usage of the more advanced children results from an overextension of a principle of shared knowledge found in adult article use.

A study of memory for places was carried out to examine five hypotheses about the use of schemata in memory performance: (a) that schemata determine what objects are encoded into memory; (b) that schemata act as frameworks for episodic information; (c) that schema-based information is integrated with episodic information; (d) that schemata facilitate retrieval; and (e) that schemata influence what is communicated at recall. Subjects were taken into what they thought was a graduate student's office and later were tested for memory of the room with either drawing recall, written recall, or verbal recognition. Memory scores for objects were correlated with schema expectancy and saliency ratings. Schema expectancy was positively correlated with recall and recognition. Expected objects were inferred in recall, supporting the integration hypothesis. Comparison of recall and recognition data supported the retrieval hypothesis. Analysis of the written descriptions supported the communication hypothesis. Saliency was positively correlated with recall and recognition for present objects, but was unrelated to retrieval. Saliency was negatively correlated with recognition for nonpresent objects, suggesting a metacognitive strategy in recognition of high-salient objects.

A series of experiments on comprehension and memory of common goal-directed events was carried out. Empirically based Plan schemata for two videotaped events were derived by asking subjects which actions were done “in order to” do other actions. An experiment on memory for videotaped events found a hierarchical pattern of recall and that the recall of goal-directed actions was superior to that of non-goal-directed actions, supporting the hypothesis that Plan schemata are used in the recall of events. An additional experiment showed that the temporal order of actions in observed events is reconstructed from the underlying Plan schema. A parallel series of recall experiments was carried out using prose descriptions of the videotaped events. Results replicated the earlier studies, suggesting that the recall of narrative prose is largely determined by the Plan schema of the underlying events.