Graduation Year

2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

M.A.

Degree Name

Master of Arts (M.A.)

Degree Granting Department

Psychology

Major Professor

Thomas Sanocki, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Paul Atchley, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Vanessa Lee, Ph.D.

Keywords

Attention, Processing, Scene Perception, Schemata

Abstract

Schemata, or schemas, are conceptualized as “building blocks” of cognition that guide human information processing, object recognition, retrieval of memory, and more. Major work on schema theory was done in the 1970s, conceptualizing it as a useful framework for understanding how individuals organize knowledge and apply it to understand the world (e.g., Rumelhart, 1980). Research on schema theory has continued to have implications for reading comprehension, visual processing, and encoding and retrieval of memories. Despite the vast literature, the concept of schema itself remains loosely defined, with little consensus on how schemas are organized. This study explores whether function acts as an organizing principle of schemas using everyday scene schemas (e.g., kitchen, bedroom, classroom). A total of 35 undergraduate students (70% female; Mage = 23) completed a reaction time experimental task in which they indicated whether a critical object was positioned appropriately for function. Each participant served as their own control, being exposed to two different scene schema groups: highly associated function scenes (“within-room”) and less associated function scenes (“between-room”). Although no effect of scene function was found, this study develops a new cognitive task to measure understanding of objects and functions in familiar everyday scenes.

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