Schemas

Overview of Schemas

  • Schemas are cognitive structures that organise knowledge and expectations about different aspects of the world.
  • They are built up from experience, and are used to make sense of current experiences and predict future ones.
  • Schemas influence how we perceive and interpret new information; we often fit this data into our existing schemas, even if it is not a perfect match.

Function and Development of Schemas

  • Schemas streamline cognitive processing by enabling us to make assumptions about what we will experience in a given situation based on what we already know.
  • They are not static but continually develop and change based on new experiences and information. This is known as schema adjustment.
  • Schemas begin to form in early childhood, for example, a child may form a schema for a dog - four legs, tail, makes a barking noise.

Types of Schemas

  • Self-schemas are schemas about oneself that guide and organise the processing of information pertinent to the self. For example, your beliefs about your own personality.
  • Person schemas are related to specific people, such as knowledge about a friend’s behaviour or expectations about how a teacher behaves.
  • Event schemas or scripts are schemas for common situations, representing knowledge about typical routines, such as going to a restaurant or celebrating a birthday.

Strengths and Limitations of the Schema Concept

  • The concept of schemas has been used to explain a wide range of cognitive processes, including memory, perception, and language comprehension.
  • The flexibility of schemas allows for individual differences in cognition and explains why people can perceive the same event in different ways.
  • However, schemas may also lead to biases or stereotypes, as they enable us to make quick but potentially inaccurate judgements.
  • The concept is somewhat vague and hard to measure objectively, which limits its scientific credibility.

Schemas and Key Research

  • Schemas were central to Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, providing a framework for how children acquire, organise, and use knowledge.
  • Frederic Bartlett used the concept of schemas to explain how people reconstruct past events in a way that makes sense to them, often changing or omitting details to fit with existing schemas.
  • Research by Bransford and Johnson demonstrated how schemas can strongly influence memory recall and comprehension.