What Is Schema Useful

A schema is a cognitive framework that helps organize and interpret information. Schemas can be useful because they allow us to take shortcuts when interpreting large quantities of information. It includes are integrated knowledge about familiar, everyday events and the relationships among them. Although, these frameworks do cause us to exclude relevant information, and instead focus only on what confirms our pre-existing ideas. Schemas can supply to stereotypes, making it hard to retain new information that does not confirm our already settled ideas. Schemas used in learning are mostly automatic, and sometimes an existing schema can actually obstruct the learning of new information.
The theory behind schema assumes that what is encoded into memory is heavily influenced by schemas that aid in interpreting unfamiliar information. It does this so that the information learned is …show more content…
Statues of monkeys on the windowsills, rulers on every desk, a 6 pack of beer on the chalkboard, an apple on the podium, and a projector hanging from the ceiling. When leaving the room my memory would only remember the relevant material upon recall. The schema of a classroom would have me remember the desks, chalkboard, apple, and projector, which are correct, but it would also have me think I remembered seeing books, a world map, and a clock, which indeed were not present. Another example of the way schemas work would be if I saw a dog. I know that the dog have 4 limbs, has a tail, ears, and fur. If a cat walked by I would believe that it was indeed a dog due to its fitting of the physical description. Schemas tend to have a bottom-up processing. It suggests that people perceive material by beginning with the smaller fragments, and then build up until the whole image is conceived. This is how we gather the understanding that even though the animals resemble they are not the