The roles of schema in memory system

When they are applied to real-life experience schemata may play role in our memory system in several ways. there are nine functions of schemata.

1. Knowledge representation. Schema represents all kinds of knowledge, from a simple knowledge about the shape of the letter 'A' to the more complex knowledge such as knowledge about picnic and politics, and knowledge about motor actions like driving a car.

2. Storage. Schema incorporate all different kinds of knowledge we have accumulated, including both generalization derived from our personal experience and facts we have been taught.

3. Retrieval. Schema are actively engaged in recognizing and interpreting new input. Bottom-up and top-down processes may go through repeated cycles, and the final interpretation of new inputs will depend on which schema constitutes the best fit for the incoming information. the memory of a scene in a restaurant might consist of the original observations  - a diner refuses a dish brought to him, and the waiter takes it away; we might  think that the customer was complaining that something was wrong with the food. This interpretation is based on our prior knowledge about possible way of behaving in restaurants.

4. Selection. The schema guides the selection of what is encoded and stored in memory. Information that is not relevant to the schema that is currently the most active may be ignored. So we may not remember what clothes we wore when we were taking an exam, because clothes are not relevant to the activated exam schema.

5. Abstraction. information in memory tends to undergo transformation from the specific to general. So if we  try to recall the occasion of a particular visit to a restaurant we tend to recall the general features common to many such visit rather than the specific details of a particular visit. Only the general schema is retained in memory, while the particular episode is forgotten. that's why in remembering a story we tend to retain the general idea, not the exact wording.

6. Normalization. memory of events also tends to be distorted so as to fit in with prior expectations and to be consistent with the schema. they are therefore transformed toward the most probably, or most typical event of that kind. People may misreport an event they witnessed because they remember what they expected to see rather that what they actually saw.

7. Comprehension. Schema functions as a means of comprehension. To comprehend something is to select schema that provides a plausible account of it and thus allows us to assimilate it to something we know.

8. Integration. A knowledge representation in our memory is in an integrated form. it includes information derived from the current experience, prior knowledge which is related  to it, and default values supplied by the schema.

9. Finally, schemata can affect how much we recall. If we have well-developed schemata for a domain, we may be able to take in and recall much more information.