Schemas

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Mental structures that help organize and interpret knowledge based on previous experience
2. Conceptual frameworks that assist in understanding and responding to information by categorizing it
3. Cognitive templates used to shape perception and guide memory by organizing related concepts

Etymology: The plural "schemas" is the form of "schema," which English took directly from Latin "schēma," itself from Ancient Greek "skhêma," meaning "form" or "shape." The Greek word carried a purely visual sense: the outline or figure of a thing, the way something held itself. Its close relative "scheme" arrived in English by a different route, so the two are doublets, sharing one ancestor but differing in how they reached English. The modern psychological sense is a much later development built on that original notion of shape. A schema, in this sense, is a framework of organized expectations that the mind uses to sort new experience. The idea of a visible form became the idea of an invisible structure of understanding, a mental outline that fits incoming information into place.

Synonyms: diagrams, models, frameworks, blueprints