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In psychology and cognitive science, a schema (plural schemata or schemas), describes an organized pattern of thought or behavior. It can also be described as a mental structure of preconceived ideas, a framework representing some aspect of the world, or a system of organizing and perceiving new information. Schemata influence attention and the absorption of new knowledge: people are more likely to notice things that fit into their schema, while re-interpreting contradictions to the schema as exceptions or distorting them to fit. Schemata have a tendency to remain unchanged, even in the face of contradictory information.

People use schemata to organize current knowledge and provide a framework for future understanding. Examples of schemata include academic rubrics, social schemas, stereotypes, social roles, scripts, worldviews, and archetypes. In Piaget's theory of development, children adopt a series of schemata to understand the world.

Schema theory can be extended to accommodate multiple concepts in linked Schema programs. Interlinks and conjunctions can form Meta Schemas creating complex belief systems that can be either consciously or unconsciously formed and run. Example "cat" "mat" incorporating schema "sat" and conjunction "on" can create The "Cat Sat on" The "Mat". The possessive "The" is a special form of Schema with multi-Schema faculty

Background research
Sufferers of Korsakov's syndrome are unable to form new memories, and must approach every situation as if they had just seen it for the first time. Many sufferers adapt by continually forcing their world into barely-applicable schemata, often to the point of incoherence and self-contradiction.

The original concept of schemata is linked with that of reconstructive memory as proposed and demonstrated in a series of experiments by Bartlett (1932). By presenting participants with information that was unfamiliar to their cultural backgrounds and expectations and then monitoring how they recalled these different items of information (stories, etc.), Bartlett was able to establish that individuals' existing schemata and stereotypes influence not only how they interpret "schema-foreign" new information but also how they recall the information over time. One of his most famous investigations involved asking participants to read a Native American folk tale, "The War of the Ghosts", and recall it several times up to a year later. All the participants transformed the details of the story in such a way that it reflected their cultural norms and expectations, i.e. in line with their schemata. The factors that influenced their recall were:
 * Omission of information that was considered irrelevant to a participant;
 * Transformation of some of the details, or of the order in which events, etc., were recalled; a shift of focus and emphasis in terms of what was considered the most important aspects of the tale;
 * Rationalization: details and aspects of the tale that would not make sense would be "padded out" and explained in an attempt to render them comprehensible to the individual in question;
 * Cultural shifts: the content and the style of the story were altered in order to appear more coherent and appropriate in terms of the cultural background of the participant.

Bartlett's work was crucially important in demonstrating that long-term memories are neither fixed nor immutable but are constantly being adjusted as our schemata evolve with experience. In a sense it supports the existentialist view that we construct our past and present in a constant process of narrative/discursive adjustment, and that much of what we "remember" is actually confabulated (adjusted and rationalized) narrative that allows us to think of our past as a continuous and coherent string of events, even though it is probable that large sections of our memory (both episodic and semantic) are irretrievable to our conscious memory at any given time.

An important step in the development of schema theory was taken by the work of D.E. Rumelhart describing our understanding of narrative and stories. See also J. M. Mandler Further work on the concept of schemata was conducted by Brewer and Treyens (1981) who demonstrated that the schema-driven expectation of the presence of an object was sometimes sufficient to trigger its erroneous recollection. An experiment was conducted where participants were requested to wait in a room identified as an academic's study and were later asked about the room's contents. A number of the participants recalled having seen books in the study whereas none were present. Brewer and Treyens concluded that the participants' expectations that books are present in academics' studies were enough to prevent their accurate recollection of the scenes.

Modification
New information that falls within an individual's schema is easily remembered and incorporated into their worldview. However, when new information is perceived that does not fit a schema, many things can happen. The most common reaction is to simply ignore or quickly forget the new information. This can happen on a deep level— frequently an individual does not become conscious of or even perceive the new information. People may also interpret the new information in a way that how much they must change their schema. For example, Bob thinks that chickens don't lay eggs. He then sees a chicken laying an egg. Instead of changing the part of his schema that says 'chickens don't lay eggs', he is likely to adopt the belief that the animal in question that he has just seen laying an egg is not a real chicken. This is an example of 'disconfirmation bias', the tendency to set higher standards for evidence that contradicts one's expectations. However, when the new information cannot be ignored, existing schemata must be changed or new schemata must be created   (accommodation).

For example, if this chicken has red feathers, Bob can form a new schemata that says 'chickens with red feathers can lay eggs'. This schemata will then be either changed or removed, in the future.

Assimilation is the reuse of schemata to fit the new information. , when an unfamiliar dog is seen, a person will probably just assimilate it into their dog schema. However, if the dog behaves strangely, and in ways that doesn't seem dog-like, there will be accommodation as a new schema is formed for that particular dog.

Self-schemata
Schemata about oneself are considered to be grounded in the present and based on past experiences. Memories, as mentioned, are framed in the light of one's self-conception. For example, people who have positive self-schemas (i.e. most people) selectively attend to flattering information and selectively ignore unflattering information, with the consequence that flattering information is subject to deeper encoding, and therefore superior recall. Even when encoding is equally strong for positive and negative feedback, positive feedback is more likely to be recalled. Moreover, memories may even be distorted to become more favourable-people typically remember exam grades as having been better than they actually were. However, when people have negative self views, memories are generally biased in ways that validate the negative self-schema; People with low self-esteem, for instance, are prone to remember more negative information about themselves than positive information. Thus, memory tends to be biased in a way that validates the agent's pre-existing self-schema.

There are three major implications of self-schemata. First, information about oneself is processed faster and more efficiently, especially consistent information. Second, one retrieves and remembers information that is relevant to one's self-schema. Third, one will tend to resist information in the environment that is contradictory to one's self-schema. For instance, students with a particular self-schema prefer roommates whose view of them is consistent with that schema. Students who end up with roommates whose view of them is inconsistent with their self-schema are more likely to try to find a new roommate, even if this view is positive. This is an example of self-verification.

As researched by Aaron Beck, automatically-activated negative self-schemas are a large contributor to depression. According to Cox, Abramson, Devine, and Hollon (2012), these self-schemas are essentially the same type of cognitive structure as stereotypes studied by prejudice researchers (e.g., they are both well-rehearsed, automatically activated, difficult to change, influential toward behavior, emotions, and judgments, and bias information processing).

Schema therapy
Schema therapy was founded by Jeffrey Young, and represents a development of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) specifically for treating personality disorders. The therapy blends CBT with elements of Gestalt, object relations, constructivist and psychoanalytical therapies in order to treat the characterological difficulties which both constitute personality disorders and which underlie many of the chronic depressive or anxiety-involving symptoms which present in the clinic. CBT, Young felt, may be an effective treatment for presenting symptoms, but without the conceptual or clinical resources for tackling the underlying structures (maladaptive schema) which consistently organize the patient's experience, the patient is likely to lapse back into unhelpful modes of relating to others and attempting to meet their needs. Early Maladaptive Schema are described by Young as: broad and pervasive themes or patterns; made up of memories, feelings, sensations, and thoughts; regarding oneself and one's relationships with others; developing during childhood or adolescence; elaborated throughout life; and dysfunctional in that they lead to self-defeating behavior. Examples include schema of abandonment/instability, mistrust/abuse, emotional deprivation, and defectiveness/shame.