Role of Schema

What can cognitive processing be affected by?

A person's beliefs or expectations, referred to as schema

What are schema?

Packages of ideas and information developed through experience.

What do schema act as?

A mental framework for the interpretation of incoming information received by cognitive system

What are babies born with?

Simple motor schema for innate behaviours like sucking and grasping.

What happens to our schema as we get older?

More detailed and sophisticated.

What have adults developed?

Mental representations for everything

What does schema enable us to do?

Process lots of information quickly

What's a good thing about schema?

It's useful as a sort of mental short-cut that prevents us from being overwhelmed by environmental stimuli.

What's a bad thing about schema?

It may distort our interpretations of sensory information leading to perpetual errors