Schema
Also known as: Schemata
A mental template of how things usually go that guides what we notice and recall.
What it means
A schema is an organized knowledge structure abstracted from experience that represents the typical features and relations of a concept, event, or situation. Schemas speed comprehension by letting us infer unstated details and anticipate what comes next, but they also bias attention toward expected information and distort memory toward the prototype. At encoding they determine what is noticed; at retrieval they fill gaps with schema-consistent inferences, producing both schema-consistent intrusions and, sometimes, better memory for sharply schema-inconsistent surprises. Scripts are a special case of schema for routine event sequences. The construct is central to reconstructive accounts of memory and to social cognition.
Examples
A 'restaurant' script leads diners to remember being handed a menu even at a place where they ordered at the counter.
Witnesses to an office break-in report the burglar wearing gloves and carrying a bag, filling the gaps with what a burglar 'would' have, not with what they actually saw.
Asked what happened in a job interview a week later, a candidate recalls being asked 'where do you see yourself in five years' — a question the panel never actually asked.
First described in Bartlett (1932); Rumelhart; Schank & Abelson (scripts, 1977).