Schema theory

The schema theory is how we organized knowledge in our mind according to it’s importance, in our mind. However this many not always be as helpful as we think. It is very easy to distortion, because Schemata influences so unique to each individual. For instance in Ronald cottons case study, Jennifer’s memory changed it fit the most possible picture in steed of the actual picture. Schema is designed to make things easy for you, so if things get complicated our mind/schema will change it to make it easy. You could say, that every time you retrieve a memory, you put it back slightly altered. When ask a question, which, to give the answer your memory is needed, the words used in the question can have a large affect on the way you remember thing, like in the Loftus & Palmer, 1974 study simply changing the word smash in steed of hit made people think/remember the hit as being harder than it was, which furthermore when asked the question “did you see broken glass” would got them thinking “well it was a hard collision so there should be broken glass” which would lead them to the thought “there was broken glass.” if we didn't have schema it would almost impossible to remember, so in a way it is helpful, but more often then not schema will change the way we see things.

Eyewitness

On July 1984 a man broke the house of Jennifer Thompson, took things from her home and sexually assaulted her.  Jennifer went to the police and told her story; the police showed her a photo line up of possible offenders. Out of the group, Jennifer picked a man named Ronald cotton, and again when looking at the psychical line choose Ronald cotton. He was found guilty and sentenced a lot life and fifty years in jail. After while cotton hear talk of a new prisoner (bobby pool) talking about how her raped this girl Jennifer, but when he was given a second trial, Jennifer still said the he was the rapist even though, she was looking in to the eyes of her real rapist, bobby pool.

When Jennifer first went to the police, they worked and a sketch up of what the offender might look like.  While Ronald cotton did some what resemble the sketch up there were small differences. While if she had looked at the picture one by one she may have realized the differences between the sketch and cotton, but since booby pool was not in the original line up, Jennifer’s memory/ eye changed to fit the closest possible person.

After living in jail for many years, Ronald cotton asked for a DNA test, the test showed that he was innocent and that the real rapist was bobby pool. This was a huge shock to Jennifer; at first she had truly believed that the rapist was Ronald cotton, now she works with cotton make sure mistakes like that are made. The case of Ronald cotton was not the one of it’s kind.