Anderson and Pichert (1978)

Uses: schema

Aim: to investigate if schema processing influences encoding and retrieval

Method: true experiment

Procedure:

• Participants were split into two groups in the encoding stage, then the two groups are split again into 4 groups during the retrieval stage

• Participants heard the story and the maximum point you can get is 72 points.

• Half the participants were asked to view the story as a house buyer and the other half as burglars

• They were tested on their memorization (? Not sure about this step)

• After a distraction task (12 minutes), half of the participants in both groups got another schema, burglar switched to buyer and vice versa

• The other half were tested on their original schema.

Result:

• Changed schema recalled 7% more points in the in the second recall than in the first one

• Participants who were asked to switch schema recalled more points than the other half who kept the same schema.

• Recall of points that were directly linked to the new schema increased by 10 per cent, whereas recall of points that were important to the previous schema declined.

• The group that continued with the first schema actually remembered less at the second trial than the first trail.

Conclusion:

• Schema processing has effects on encoding and retrieval, because the new schema could only have influenced recall at the retrieval stage.

• People encoded information that are irrelevant to their current schema, since people who are originally buyers remembered stuff only burglars care about and irrelevant to themselves.

Evaluation:

• High internal validity, low ecological validity

• Prior personal knowledge and experience

• Participant differences

• Cause and effect relationship

• Replicable

• Sampling bias

• 2x2 experimental design

Pichert, J. W., & Anderson, R. C. (1977). Taking different perspectives on a story. Journal of Educational Psychology, 69(4), 309–315. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.69.4.309