What are Schemata?

• "A schema is a general knowledge structure that provides a set of expectations based on prior experience" (Sakamoto & Love, 2004)
• Cervone (2004) proposes that knowledge is organized into schemata that help short cut the cognitive appraisal of every event individuals encounter. People may draw on pre-existing knowledge about their own personal attributes, resulting in a behaviour in-accordance to beliefs that are held in the self-schema (Cervone, 2004).
• Habitual responses (i.e. thoughts, feelings, and behaviour) are pre-established dynamic responses that have been embedded through a process of operant conditioning of repeated social interactions that are similar to other previous social events (i.e. experience) (Cervone, 2004; Goleman, 1996; Funder, 2004, pp. 445-450).

Perception of reality is a reflection of the perceptions of the self. The schemata that have built up over many years of refinement help us to take mental shortcuts when judging the world around us. Self-perception likewise is derived from interactions with others and formed by their opinion of us. Of course this starts at a very early age, with the interaction with the prime caregiver and all the attitudes and moods that that caregiver alternates through in the course of the individual days they interact.

Schemata as defined by Cervone (2004), can be viewed as a frame work of learnt behaviour that is organised in cognitive scripts. Cosentino, Chute, Libon, More and Grossman (2006) utilises the term scripts, for the same phenomenon, that is, for large-scale routine sequenced actions such as going fishing, making breakfast, going to a movie or visiting the doctor, which is in essence the same definition as schemata. The definition of schemata extends to include the internal visualisation of tangible thing and the categorisation of things, whether living of non-living (Sakamoto & Love, 2004).

Cosentino, et al. (2004) shows in prior research that the prefrontal cortex was once believed to be responsible for the encoding and retrieval of scripts. Cosentino, et al. (2004) subsequently site Sirigu, Zalla, Pillon, Grafman, Agid and Dubois . (1995, 1996) that demonstrates that the prefrontal cortex is responsible for the prioritising the importance of scripts. For example is it more important to go fishing or go to the doctor? A person with damage to the prefrontal cortex will find an equal argument for both and be unable to make a decision as neither are prioritised to be more important than the other. Thus Cosentino, et al. (2004) proposes that the prefrontal cortex recruits semantic knowledge about the content of scripts from the temporal cortex, and derive meaning by organizing this knowledge into behaviour that is goal-directed and prioritised.

The role of modular driven schemata becomes evident when select the regions of the brain become active for particular schemata that come to mind. The prefrontal cortex draws information for language function from left-sided activation of premotor cortex, posterior middle frontal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, temporal sulcus, and supramarginal gyrus and for script tasks, brain imaging shows extensive activation in the left and right middle frontal gyrus, supplementary motor area, and inferior frontal gyrus and left angular gyrus (Cosentino, et al. 2004).

Although neural networking may be appropriate for computer programming and simulations of hypothetical brain functioning, it is only a poor metaphor for the living brain. Even though a poor metaphor as it is, it is the best we have at this stage of our technological development.