Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 637

2021 International Conference on Education, Language and Art (ICELA 2021)

The Influence of Schematic Knowledge Differences on

Memory Recall: How Do Different Cultural
Backgrounds Impact Memory Recognition
Junchi Huang1, †, Ziyu Wan2, *, †, Jun Wang3, †, Lan Xu4, †
1
University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, United States
2
University of California San Diego San Diego, United States
3
University of California San Diego, San Diego, United States
4
University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
*
Corresponding author. Email: ziwan@ucsd.edu
†
These authors contributed equally.

ABSTRACT
Throughout years of studying the schematic knowledge influence or schema effect, we have a general understanding
of how it manipulates our memory and causes some sorts of different levels of memory distortions. This study
examines how the differences in schematic knowledge are going to influence people’s memory. The present study
involved 20 participants from 18 to 30 years old who had at least finished high school education. Participants in this
experiment will either be domestic Chinese Students who have never studied abroad or studied in Western countries
for less than a year, or international Chinese students who have studied one or more years in Western countries.
Participants will be shown to two different backgrounds of dining halls either Chinese or Western dining halls and
followed with a menu list including 10 dishes, and they will be tested on a memory recognition test of those dishes. In
this case of study, both domestic and international Chinese students should have more background information with
their corresponding dining halls and menus so that domestic Chinese are more familiar with Chinese dining hall and
menu, while international students are more familiar with Western dining halls and menus, in which they should react
faster and have a better accuracy rate when the test is corresponding to their schemata.

Keywords: Schematic information, Cultural background, Memory Recognition.

1.INTRODUCTION The experiment led by Rubinova, Blank, Koppel,

and Ost focused on finding how our established schema
Schematic knowledge is used often in our daily life for unfamiliar events changed through exposure to
from comprehending things to remembering events. different variants that they designed 4 different versions
Though schemata are not always perfect, they interfere of stories and varied the orders and contents of them and
with our central memory encoding processes and thus tested the participants in 4 different time spans. In the
cause somewhat memory distortions [1]. Alba and experiment, the stories were based on a simplified and
Hasher evaluated how the schematic information shortened passage of a Korean Wedding Ceremony. In
influenced four of the memory encoding processes: brief, participants showed a gradual increase of
selection, abstraction, interpretation, and integration. accuracy of recall as the examples of stories go, which
And all four encoding processes show that prior demonstrated that there was a build-up schema
knowledge (schema) played a huge role in forming our formation of the unfamiliar stories and helped us
memory or retrieving information from our memory. In consolidate our memory formation as well. Besides,
addition, schematic knowledge is not something that we there were few memory errors of deviation from the
are born inert. Rather, it is a build-up information that original story shown than when it was tested with
we developed and establish through our experiences in familiar stories [2]. In this case, it suggested that the
life, and thus sometimes it may change and deviates as build-up of new schema took over more of the attention
time goes [2]. when remembering events.

Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press SARL.

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license -http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. 754
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Further research has done not only schematic objects. In this case, it indicates that older adults are
knowledge’s influence on encoding processes or more reliant on schematic information and more likely
developing new schema, but also its influence on to use them than younger people [7].
people’s everyday source monitoring tasks, the
With the knowledge of how schematic information
judgments of where the origin of the information is [3].
can either enhance the possibility of retrieving
In this experiment, ninety-six pairs of sentences were
information or cause memory errors, we are planning to
selected from 327 sentences that one of the pairs will be
dig deeper into the topic that whether cultural variations
used as the distractor, which they would not be
can also influence people’s formation of schemata and
presented in the actual study. Ninety-six of the
memory retrieval, and how much of the schemata is
sentences were evenly distributed into three categories
culturally specific. In Carrell’s review, it appears that
of the sentence type (e.g., expected-lawyer statement,
there isn’t enough evidence of generalizable content
expected-doctor statement, and equally expected
schemata that is culturally specific due to the existence
statement) and assigned into one of the sources that are
of different cultural group may developed same
either doctor or lawyer. Participants were shown to all
schemata for certain things [8]. However, Qi and
96 sentences one by one, that each followed with a
Roberts found the cultural differences when doing
source of the statement on a computer screen, and they
memory recognition test that comparing 10-year-old
will be tested on which sources the sentences belong to.
Chinese and Euro-Canadian children’s memory recall of
In conclusion, the predicted interaction between the
stories [9]. Both the Chinese and Euro-Canadian
expectancy and sources were proved that the correct
children watched a story involving both social- and
identification of sources was significantly higher when
individual-focused scenarios. Participants then did recall
expectancy and its source matched, which demonstrated
tests both immediately and delayed. The delayed
that schematic knowledge positively influences our
experiment was tested five to seven days after the
memory recall on source monitoring. However, similar
immediate test to eliminate the recency effect. As of
to the last experiment, Bayen and Spaniol did another
result, Chinese children are better at remembering
experiment found a rather different result that though
socially related events in the story than individuals. On
the schematic knowledge affects the source monitoring,
the other hand, the Euro-Canadian children more
its effect is relatively late in processing and schematic
accurately recall the individual related events of the
knowledge may largely depended on the person itself
story. In conclusion, in both the immediate and delayed
that the interpersonal differences can play a huge role
cases, the cultural differences do play a role in what
[4]. Also, other research indicates that with the help of
children are more likely to remember though in
judgement of learning, the error of memory distortions
countries differences in delayed recall test isn’t as
may decrease significantly that caused by schematic
significant.
information [5].
Collectively, the past research on schematic
In addition, schematic information also has a
information reviews schematic knowledge’s influence
profound influence on spatial memory found by Brewer
on our encoding and retrieving of the memory.
and Treyens that when objects’ s expectancy and
Understanding the effects of schematic knowledge helps
saliency are high with its corresponding locations, the
us to establish the connection between memory recall
frequency of recall of both the objects and locations will
and the difference of schemata. In our present study, we
be high as well [6]. Another experiment related to
aim to keep investigating how cultural level schematic
spatial memory and schemata was conducted by Hess
differences influence our memory recall like what Qi
and Slaughter in 1990. They conducted an experiment
and Roberts did with Chinese and Euro-Canadian
that studied how age played a role in spatial memory
children. Therefore, our experiment is also mainly
and their use of schema knowledge that young adults
focusing on the aspect of schematic knowledge
and old people were selected in this experiment.
differences and memory recognition. In our study, two
Organized and Unorganized kitchen scenes were shown
culturally different participant groups (domestic and
to the participants and asked to take both the object
international Chinese students) will be tested on
recognition test and placement test (place the object to
recalling menu lists from either Chinese dining hall
where it belongs in the scene). To conclude, when scene
scene background or Western dining hall scene
organization was low, subjects tended to place objects in
background, followed by a menu that contains both
a manner that is more consistent with their knowledge
Chinese and English dishes with the same ratio.
of the world, which proved that the schematic
Experiments will then collect and measure the accuracy
knowledge is tightly related to our spatial memory. And
and the reaction time of each participant when they
they also found that elimination of a meaningful spatial
recall the dish from both backgrounds. We hypothesize
organization had a greater negative impact on the
that participants should be more familiar with their own
placement of high-likelihood objects in the older adults,
culturally familiar backgrounds and menus, and have
but younger adults were better able to use the
higher accuracy and faster recall when doing the test.
organization to enhance memory for low-likelihood
That is to say, domestic Chinese students should react

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faster and have a better recall when the object is in a experimenters for further analysis. Some other
Chinese dining hall. Conversely, international students participants finished the experiment by performing it on
should react faster and have a better recall when the the experimenters’ computer. No matter which kind of
object is in the Western dining hall. experiment form (online or in-person) participants chose
to use, when they got access to the PsychoPy program,
2. METHODS they started with entering Participant ID (made up by
themselves or the experimenters) and their session.
2.1. Participants After signing the consent form to agree to participate in
the experiment, participants read the instruction of the
The participants were 20 adults aged between 18 to experiment in English. The formal experiment started.
30. There were 8 men (40%) and 12 women (60%) with
In the experiment, participants first saw the picture
a mean age of 21 (SD = 1.747). Ten participants (50%)
of the Chinese dining hall (CDH) and a sentence
did not have any previous study abroad experience. Ten
indicating that this picture showed a Chinese dining hall.
participants (50%) had study abroad experience (equal
Then, they saw a menu with 10 dishes. Among them, 5
to or larger than 1 year). All participants were invited to
were Chinese traditional dishes, and 5 were Western
participate in this experiment by friends or classmates
traditional dishes. After 5 seconds, the menu
with no reward. All participants consented to the
disappeared, and the recognition test started.
participation and the study was approved by the local
Participants were given a dish name and asked to
ethics committee.
evaluate whether they saw the dish in the menu they had
just seen. Then, they rated the confidence level (5 levels
2.2. Materials in total) of their answer. This recognition process
Materials for the experiment are on-screen only, repeated for 12 dishes. After completing the recognition
including a PsychoPy program and an online test, the second trial started. Participants were given a
questionnaire used to collect participants’ demographic picture of the Western dining hall (WDH) and a
information. sentence indicating that this picture showed a western
dining hall. Similar to the first trial, after seeing the
In this experiment, PsychoPy was used to create the picture for 5 seconds, participants started the
platform (a program) where participants could perform. recognition test.
In the PsychoPy program, two dining hall pictures and
two menus were shown. The dining hall pictures were a When participants completed 2 sessions, the
picture of a Chinese-style dining hall and a picture of a PsychoPy program was over. They sent the data
Western-style dining hall. In each menu, 5 Chinese collected by PsychoPy to the experimenter. The
traditional dishes (e.g., “Xiaolongbao”) and 5 Western experimenter gave them a QR code, which linked to an
traditional dishes (e.g., “Cheeseburger”) were presented online questionnaire. In the questionnaire, participants
both in English and in Chinese. All the dishes were were required to provide their age, gender, and the
randomly chosen from a list of 20 Chinese traditional number of years they stayed abroad. They also provided
dishes and a list of 20 Western traditional dishes. The their Participant ID in the questionnaire. After filling the
order of 10 dishes on the menu was also randomized. form, the debriefing process started. Participants were
given the goal and theory of the experiment by the
The PsychoPy program also contains two experimenter. Participants were thanked and dismissed
recognition tests. In each test, 12 dishes showed up on after the debriefing section.
the screen with a question asking about the familiarity
(“Have you seen this word before?”) one by one. The 2.4. Data Analysis
dishes that showed up in the recognition test were
randomly chosen from 2 lists. One list contained the The threshold for statistical significance was set at p
dishes that were in the previous menu; the other < 0.05 for all analyses. Participant characteristics were
contains dishes that were not in the previous menu. The analyzed using descriptive statistics. A 2 x 2 repeated-
ratio between the numbers of dished chosen from two measures ANOVA was used to measure the effect of
lists was 50:50. The online questionnaire contains 3 study abroad experience on recalling dish names from
demographic questions – participant’s gender, age, and the menu, based on different dining hall pictures. The
the number of years of living abroad. dependent variable is the accuracy for the recognition
test and the response time for each selection in the
2.3. Procedure recognition test. A post hoc test was also used to see the
detailed effect of individual independent variables and
The experiment took place both online and in person. combined.
Some participants finished the experiment by
downloading the PsychoPy program and perform it on
their laptop or PC. Then, they sent the data to the

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3. RESULTS
12 Domestic International
The mean accuracy and RTs of Chinese domestic
and international students in the Chinese and Western 10
dining hall backgrounds are illustrated in Figure 1 and
Figure 2, respectively. The means and standard 8

Accuracy
deviations of accuracy and RTs for students are shown 6
in Table 1.
4
A repeated-measures ANOVA was conducted to
compare the accuracy between two groups of students in 2
Chinese and Western dining hall conditions. There was
a significant difference of accuracy within the 0
interaction of study abroad experiences and dining hall Chinese Dining Hall Western Dining Hall
backgrounds, F (1,9) = 10.00, p = .01, η² = .12.
However, there was no significant difference of Figure 1. Mean Accuracy of Domestic and International
accuracy in study abroad experiences (F (1,9) = 2.65, p Students in Chinese and Western Dining Hall
= .14, η² = .12) and dining hall backgrounds (F (1,9) = Backgrounds
0.38, p = .55, η² = .01). Following Cohen’s criteria
(1988), these constitute a medium to large effect for the Note. Chinese Dining Hall = Chinese dining hall
interaction of study abroad experiences and dining hall background; Western Dining Hall = Western dining hall
backgrounds. It suggested that the interaction has a background; Accuracy = accuracy of memory test. Error
significant impact on the mean accuracy of the tests. bars represent standard errors.

Post-hoc tests with Bonferroni corrections for

multiple accuracy comparisons were used to analyze Domestic International
further the effects of interactional contexts on study 6
experiences and dining hall backgrounds. It 5
demonstrates that in CDH conditions, the difference of
accuracy between domestic and international students 4
RT(s)

was broadly significant, p = .07. However, there were 3

no other significant results.
2
Another repeated-measures ANOVA was conducted
to compare the RTs between the same conditions as 1
before. There was a significant difference of RTs in
dining hall conditions, F (1,9) = 10.00, p < .01, η²
0
Chinese Dining Hall Western Dining Hall
= .163. Nevertheless, there was no significant difference
in univariate conditions of study experiences (F (1,9) = Figure 2. Mean Reaction Times of Domestic and
2.53, p = .15, η² = .10) and interaction of study International Students in Chinese and Western Dining
experiences and dining hall backgrounds (F (1,9) = 2.86, Hall Backgrounds
p = .13, η² = .06). According to Cohen's criteria (1988),
these suggest a significant large effect of dining hall Note. Chinese Dining Hall = Chinese dining hall
backgrounds on the mean RTs. background; Western Dining Hall = Western dining hall
background; RT = Reaction time. Error bars represent
The effects of multiple comparisons of RTs for standard errors.
dining hall backgrounds were further analyzed by post- Table 1. Mean Accuracy and Reaction Times of
hoc tests with Bonferroni corrections. It illustrates that Domestic and International Students in Chinese and
the RTs in CDH were significantly larger than in WDH, Western Dining Hall Backgrounds
p < .01.
Domestic International

M SD M SD

CDH-Accuracy 8.40 2.01 10.40 0.84

WDH-Accuracy 9.10 1.91 9.10 1.37

CDH-RT 4.05 2.82 2.23 1.02

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internal validity of our research. Since the experiment

WDH-RT 1.96 0.70 1.71 0.42
was held separately by each group member, the
Note. CDH = Chinese dining hall; WDH = Western environment of this research cannot be uniformly
dining hall; RT = Reaction time; M = mean; SD= controlled. Time and space of each experiment can be
Standard deviation quite different. This can affect the validity of the
research because it has been studied that environmental
4. DISCUSSION factor may play a large part in research findings that
investigators assume are due simply to research designs
The results of our experiment were quite surprising. [11]. In our research, we assume that it is the
In contrast to prediction, the results failed to support the background picture which causes the schema effect. But
hypotheses and illustrated that schematic knowledge the participants can also be influenced by the actual
hurts a student's memory performance. We assumed that environment unconsciously. Thus, when a participant
Chinese domestic students would perform better and answers the test questions in different environments, the
react faster than international students in Chinese dining results can vastly differ from one to another.
hall backgrounds. However, there was no significant
difference of accuracy in study abroad experiences or Sampling error. A large sampling error can also be
background types, and only a significant difference of a threat to the external validity in this research as a non-
accuracy within the interaction has been detected. One probability sampling method is being used. The
possible interpretation is the “false memory effect” of participants are mostly our friends and classmates.
the Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM) paradigm [10]. Individuals were selected based on non-random
The background of the dining hall produced a common criteria—only the person we know would be invited to
schema of foods, which will then produce memory for the experiment. This type of sample, known as the
words that do not appear in the menu. Take Chinese convenience sample, is easier and cheaper to access, but
students as an example, when they see Chinese food has a higher risk of sampling bias. What’s more, the
names, they will have a higher chance to make a wrong sample size of our experiment will also increase
choice. What’s more, previous research has proved that sampling error. Since we were working to a very tight
schemata cannot support precise retrieval of memory [6]. deadline, we could only manage to recruit twenty
The more participants depended on their schematic participants, and a sample size of twenty is too small to
knowledge, the lower their accuracy will be. These data represent all the international college students and
indicate that when participants are familiar with the Chinese domestic college students. Considering these
background, the schema will distort our memories. They potential threats to validity, our future work should
will tend to spend more time on guessing schema-based therefore focus on improving our sample and condition
information, rather than the episodic information they control. In order to get access to larger sample size, we
remembered just a minute ago and get the wrong will do an online survey next time. As for the
answers at last. experiment condition problem, we will ask participants
to report the background information before they start
Compared to Chinese domestic students, the experiment. What’s more, we plan to use graphic
international students have shorter reaction time in both images instead of texts as stimuli in our next experiment.
backgrounds, especially in the Chinese background. Different types of stimuli may result in the recalling of
Considering that most of them have studied abroad for different schematic knowledge. By comparing the
no more than four years, the schema knowledge about outcomes of the two experiments, we may have a better
Chinese food still has a great influence on them. Based understanding of how schemata work.
on the former fact, we can speculate that living in a
cross-culture environment may reduce the effect of 6. CONCLUSION
memory distortion caused by schema knowledge. And
that might be the reason why international students Throughout history, human beings have never
perform better in both conditions. stopped doing research on memory, and we are no
exception. The effects of schematic knowledge on
5. LIMITATIONS memory were investigated experimentally in this paper.
Overall, our study revealed that schematic information
Despite the effective measures and procedures, the would hurt individual’s memory performance, making
study's validity can be affected by some potential threats. them produce non-existent memories. This conclusion
These threats to validity can be internal or external. The could be one possible explanation to memory distortion.
research might get affected by many confounding This time, we mainly focused on the memory of food
variables. They will indirectly influence the results menus. In the future, this experimental method could be
collected from the participants. further used in many other fields, including the memory
Environmental factors. The difference in of stories, names, keywords, and so on.
experimental conditions is an important threat to the

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