schema experiments (included in the unit a exam)

Schema experiments:

Palmer –

Aim: To find out whether context affects perception

All participants were tested in all conditions – repeated measures design.
They all had written instructions telling them what to do.

64 participants were tested in a laboratory experiment and were shown a visual image of a kitchen for 2 seconds. This is the context. Then the participants were briefly shown an object to identify. These included a mailbox, a loaf of bread and a drum.

The levels of independent variable (the images to identify) were as follows:

Appropriate (Identifying the loaf)
Inappropriate, similar object (Identifying the mailbox as the loaf)
Inappropriate, different object (Identifying the drum as a bowl etc.)
No context

The number of correctly identified items were counted (dependant variable)

Results:

They correctly identified most objects after the appropriate context and the least after the inappropriate

Conclusion:

Expectations affect perception. Everyone has a perceptual set based on context

Strengths

Weaknesses

The instructions were clear

They might have been able to work out the aim and tried to ‘please’ the researcher in some sections

Palmer controlled the time so the differences in accuracy was not caused by having longer time

Because of the two lots of date being removed there are less results

Two participants had forgotten their glasses, so their results were not counted.

Bartlett –

Aim: To investigate how information changes with each reproduction and to find out why it changes

All of the tests used a folk tale from a different culture so that the participants weren’t familiar with the names and ideas.

Serial reproduction task:
The first participant read the story to themselves twice at a normal speed. After 15 – 30 minutes they told the story to the second…