LISTA FINAL DEL PRODUCTO

A pain-associated recall bias in pain sufferers could be the result o f this group having, or being able to generate, a more cohesive category re: pain-related words, compared to non-pain controls. A cohesive category would arise through more repeated

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use o f pain descriptors together.

Barsalou (1983) has demonstrated in his work on ad-hoc categories, that categories can be constructed that are task specific. For example, people can construct a category relating to ‘things you would take on holiday’. However, whilst such categories display some o f the characteristics o f other so-called ‘natural categories’, ad-hoc categories have weaker instance-to-concept and concept-to-instance links. This means such an ad-hoc category concept will be less effective as both an encoding and as a retrieval aid. However, if this were a category o f objects, or in this case descriptions, that was frequently used (i.e. it was a well-established category), there would be stronger instance-to-concept and concept-to-instance links, which would lead to better recall o f material were this concept used as an encoding and retrieval aid.

The notion of well-established categories has clear parallels with the concept of schema: those for whom ‘pain’ is an ad-hoc category, that is, a category generated on the spot (perhaps for the specific task of enabling recall of material in a memory test), would be those who rarely used pain words together in a category (e.g. those people who rarely use pain words to describe symptoms, such as those without chronic pain or little pain experience). Those with repeated pain experience may, however, have linked such pain descriptors together when describing symptoms to others, such as doctors, family or friends. Hence their pain category may be well-established as opposed to ad-hoc. The notion o f an ad-hoc category can therefore be seen as analogous to having a minimal pain schema, and the notion o f an established category as analogous to a well- established and elaborate pain schema.

However the extent to which categorization theory and schema theory are considered commensurable depends upon the understanding o f schema and categorization adopted. Whilst they both relate to the organization o f material in memory, categorization theory typically refers to the mental representation o f verbal

material and knowledge, whereas schema theory may not (as is the case, for example, in

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Leventhal and Everhart’s use of the term schema).

Assuming for a moment that schema theory and categorization theory are substantially different and that whilst they both describe factors which may enhance recall o f verbal material they do so in different ways, the results demonstrated in Chapters 2 and 3 together suggest that consensus regarding categorization (which is interpreted here as reflecting tighter categorization) was sufficiently strong to over-ride any contributions towards enhanced recall offered by elaborate schematic representations of pain material or enhanced facilitated retrieval, meaning a recall bias was demonstrated towards gardening and not pain words. This suggests that categorization processes may potentially be more important than schema in governing recall performance.

However, the results reported in Chapter 3 could be interpreted as an interpretative bias towards pain-related meanings in chronic pain sufferers. Whilst schema theory suggests schema act to influence the interpretation of material, categorization theory typically either focuses on issues o f structure, or issues of inferences formed on the basis o f given categories, rather than on the dynamic interplay between the construction o f a category in a particular context that may differ for differing participants (Barsalou, 1990). The exception to this is the work o f Barsalou himself. But, although he has looked at the issue o f generating an ad-hoc category for on the spot demands, he has not explored how these may differ for people differing in their interest or experience in particular areas.

It is precisely this sort o f dynamic category construction which may occur in a memory task. In Chapter 2 some participants reported noticing categories after so many words of a particular type seemed to arise and then using this knowledge to help them remember the words. But, as the results o f Chapter 3 demonstrate, people notice different categories and different numbers of categories, and this in turn appears to be

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influenced by issues o f personal interest or involvement.

Whether this points to a definite role o f schema in this result rather than categorization processes is unclear. Barsalou, for example, has also demonstrated differences in categorization that arise when participants are invited to take different perspectives, for example, a typical American vs. a typical Japanese in the generation of typical examples o f birds. Hence categorization processes could potentially be used to explain differences in recall that may occur with differences in perspectives/interests.

4.2 SCHEMA CONTENT

Whether the results o f the previous study can be adequately conceptualized within categorization theory or not, there are issues regarding schema theory which should be considered, most notably, the extent to which word lists can adequately be seen as addressing schema content. Word lists appeal to a notion of schema content that is arguably overly reductive (e.g. at the level of individual words) and not at the more holistic level o f which schema theory usually speaks. The conclusion that word lists are problematic in studying memory in general is not new. Neisser (1987), for example, argues the assumption that:

“all forms o f memory are basically the sam e,.... (and) attractive possibilities of experimental control led to a preference for meaningless materials and unnatural learning tasks” (p. 1)

i.e. “lists o f syllables or words” (p. 1) rather than memory for stories, friends, places or life experiences. However, despite advocating a new cognitive psychology that used terms such as schema to describe and explain the subject’s active role in understanding the world (Neisser, 1966), there seems to have been a theoretical change in the meaning o f the term ‘schema’. For example, in their book “Cognitive Psychology and Emotional Disorders”, Williams et a l (1997) argue that:

“it is helpful to present a specially constructed list of words which are relevant to a depressed mood state. Using slightly artificial materials o f this kind results in an experiment that is less ambiguous to interpret” (p. 9).

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The results presented in Chapter 2 would suggest this view is overly optimistic. However this view seems to have arisen from their reducing the notion o f schema, which were originally conceptualized as generic and abstract entities (e.g. Leventhal and Everhart, 1979) summarizing entire situations or experiences, to a notion o f schema as referring to the representation of an individual word. Hence, abstract meaning which might be captured in a schematic representation o f a ‘typical pain experience’ gets reduced to meaning at the level o f an individual word. The result of this has been an acceptance o f word lists as adequately tapping schema because a schema=one word.

However this theoretical reduction in the understanding of the term schema by Williams et a l (1997) was to some extent a necessary one. It was done in order to account for the differences in patterns of information processing biases associated with different mood states (discussed in Chapter 2). By hypothesizing that schematic representations existed o f individual words, rather than generic experiences relating to pain, depression or anxiety, this meant that priming could be distinguished from elaboration. That is, schema activation could now theoretically occur without resulting in the activation o f other pain-related or mood-related concepts. If the concept of schema was understood in the broader sense, then activation o f the schema would mean if one element within it was activated, other related concepts would be activated as well. Hence this theoretical shift in the understanding of the term schema has contributed in part to the possibility that word meaning might vary across participant groups being overlooked. Accepting for the moment that this assumption about word meaning was unproblematic, using word lists nevertheless tends to result in a focus on issues of schema content (pain-related, depressive) and how schema influence memory and attentional processes at the expense o f focusing on other factors that may play a more central role in the meaning pain symptoms have for individual pain sufferers.

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