Knowledge and Schemas: Loftus and Palmer (1974a)

How does the way that we organize or classify knowledge affect what we know?

According to Bartlett (1932), reconstructive memory is a theory in which trying to remember a

memory of an event is influenced by cognitive processes such as perception, imagination, semantic
memory and beliefs. One internal process that may affect memory reconstruction are schemas, a cognitive
structure that organizes one’s knowledge about people, places, objects, and events. It helps people
organize new and old information about the world and it influences the way we encode, store and retrieve
our memories (Vinney, 2019). The awareness that memory is malleable plays an important role in legal
cases such as eyewitness testimonies during trials (Chew, 2018). Faulty memory can lead to wrongly
incarcerated cases where innocent people are locked up in jail for another’s crimes because of the
eyewitness’ faulty memory.
Through Loftus and Palmer’s (1974a) experiment, they support both reconstructive memory
theory and schema theory, even suggesting that memory recall can be influenced by post event
information. They aimed to investigate how the effect of the operative verb in a leading question may
affect speed estimates in km/h in video clips of car crashes. Their method was to utilize an independent
measures design where they showed 2 groups of participants a video of a car crash and asked them to
estimate the speed the cars were going at in km/h (DV), changing the operative verb for both groups (IV).
Their results concluded that participants asked the question with the operative verb smashed elicited a
higher speed estimate compared to contacted, suggesting that schemas play a role in memory recall and
reconstruction. They based their experiment on the theory that memory is reconstructive and malleable.
By studying this topic, lawyers, jurors and police officers can be made aware of how an eyewitness’s
memory can be affected by emotional trauma and post event information. Through this experiment, it can
be suggested that the way schemas organize and classify our knowledge affects the way we understand
what we know.

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Bibliography

Bartlett, F.C. (1932). Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

Vinney, C. (2020, August 28). What Is a Schema in Psychology? Definition and Examples. Retrieved
from https://www.thoughtco.com/schema-definition-4691768

Chew, S. L. (2018). Myth: Eyewitness Testimony Is the Best Kind of Evidence. Association for
Psychological Science. Retrieved April 13, 2021 from
https://www.psychologicalscience.org/teaching/myth-eyewitness-testimony-is-the-best-kind-of-evidence.h
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