Schema

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This is a beginning point for building a schema about schema. I’m reading and researching ideas that fit into the assignment task for the upcoming course 6411 Cognition and Learning. I’ve been tasked with finding relevant and current research articles that link and connect to Chapter 2 in the Willingham text to explore the role of background knowledge. Willingham states that factual knowledge must precede skill (p. 25). By reading the text first, I’ve begun building a schema about background knowledge, how it is encoded and retrieved, or as Gilboa & Marlatte (2017) refer, how it is ‘instantiated. Willingham posits that thinking is exhibited when combining information in new ways (p. 28). By having a repository of factual knowledge held in long term memory, we can more easily acquire additional factual knowledge (p. 44). While Willingham does not use the word schema, this is exactly the concept at the foundation of this notion. This is where I began my search, using ‘schema’ as a keyword.

Ghosh & Gilboa identify memory schema, and explore a historical perspective from neuroscience literature. The authors link information encoding to neural mechanisms, specifically action in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) (p. 105). Schema includes cognitive structures that expedite memory encoding depending on complexity, organization, and mechanisms (p. 105). This work reviews the “critical structural features of schemas” (p. 105) but does not delve into the function of schemas in memory.

The authors attempt to clarify the ambiguity of the term ‘schema’ by identifying necessary features of schema:

  1. associative network structures – schema are composed of units and interrelationships
  2. multiple episodes – representations of similarities and differences across events
  3. no unit detail – units are variables with dynamic qualities
  4. adaptability – constantly developing, changed by sensory inputs, through assimilation and accommodation (p. 108)

and have sensitivity to

  1. chronological relationship – schema are sensitive to chronology & organized time sequences
  2. organization in hierarchies – subschemas recursively store and locate information based on bottom up, data driven or top down, category driven structures; allowing for complexity (p. 109)
  3. inter-connectivity – overlapping communication between schema units, can be competitive in nature; subschemas part of multiple larger units; hold different meanings in different contexts (p. 109)
  4. embedded response option (p. 105) – schemas can contain packets with knowledge and contextually appropriate behaviours, knowledge about how the knowledge should be used; response options; responsible for well-learned action sequences; schema guides behaviour (p. 109)

The historical perspectives include Head & Holmes’ (1911) postural recognition, Piaget’s (1926) notion of schema in children as a “general cognitive structure that links multiple representations” (p. 105), Bartlett’s (1932) idea that schema are a memory structure that impacts the reconstruction process, and Tulving’s (1984) suggestion that memory is encoded semantically and episodically.

Ghosh & Gilboa (2014) also examine other meta-cognitive structures that are related to schema and relevant to memory, including:

  • narratives – a series of actions and events unfolding over time, dependent on causality (p. 110); considered to be fixed not adaptable; can be encoded as one episode
  • concepts and categories – units are nodes linked to defining features that are fixed and non-adaptable, are hierarchical, can cross-connect
  • event gists – sequence of events that reside at a higher level, that are “central and critical to the coherence of the overall plot” (p. 110); lacks details; references a specific event, not multiple episodes
  • statistical regularities – presentation of multiple units and their interrelationships (p. 110); associative networked structure; multiple episodes; can be chronologically arranged; often contains procedural learning

The analysis of recent neuroscientific studies in relation to cognitive structures in schema characterization supports their argument that schema have necessary and sensitivity to specific features. This study will further my understanding of schema characteristics in order to “guide behavior, facilitate encoding, and enhance retrieval processes” (p. 113) which will aid knowledge building.

References

Ghosh, V., & Gilboa, A. (2014). What is memory schema? A historical perspective on current neuroscience literature. Neuropsychologia, 53, 104-114.

Gilboa, A. & Marlatte, H. (2017). Neurobiology of schemas and shema-mediated memory. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 21(8), 618-631.

Willingham, D. (2009). Why don’t students like school? San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

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