APFCC+-+Brewers+and+Treyens

APFCC: Brewer and Treyens

 * Theorist ** : Brewer and Treyens
 * Study ** **of**: Recall and the effect of schemas
 * Year ** : 1981

Deception was used as they asked people to stay in an office while they waited to take part in an experiment - then taken to a separate room and asked to remember the contents of the room. They found that the preconceived ideas (schemas) of offices influenced what they remembered.
 * Summary: **

To study the effect of pre-created schemas on memory.
 * Aim: **

They asked 30 subjects to wait in an office while they ‘checked if the laboratory was free from the last person.’ After 35 seconds they returned, were taken to a different room and asked to recall everything that they saw in the office.
 * Procedures: **

They found that the participants were much more likely to remember items in the office that already were present in an average schema for an office (Expected Items). However the more obscure items were omitted from their recall (Unexpected Items). Some subjects also created false memories of expected items in the office, such as pens and books. The skull, picnic basket, wine bottle and coffee pot were rarely remembered.
 * Findings: **

This shows the way that schemas influence recall. IT also shows how people are able to create false memories of items they expect to be present. This indicates the fallibility of memory.
 * Conclusions: **

Deception was used to prevent the participants from studying the room, this gives it more ecological validity as it wasn’t an entirely artificial environment.
 * Criticisms: **

However each of the participants might have a slightly different schema of an office, and thus have remembered more things over other people. This would have affected the results.