1.1. A schema is a "mental model" or "mental framework", containing everything you know about a particular object, person, situation or event. Schemas are derived from our prior experience and knowledge - for instance, you know what a dog typically looks and behaves like because of all your past experiences with dogs.
1.2. Schemas help us to organize memories & help in recall.
1.3. Schemas help guide behaviour. Imagine you are going to watch a movie in a newly opened cinema. Would you be able to figure out how to buy tickets, popcorn and see the right movie, even though you have never been to this particular cinema before? Well, of course. This is because you have a schema for going out to the movies that tells you what to expect in a cinema, and what procedures to follow.
1.4. Research study Bradsford & Johnson or Bartlett
2. Multi-store model of memory
2.1. There is your sensory memory, the things that enter your senses briefly, but which you fail to really notice or pay much attention to. This might include all of the billboards that you walk past when riding the subway or the faces of the people you pass by while walking to school. If you really pay attention to something around you, however, this information enters your short-term memory, which can hold a few items of information for a limited time.
2.2. You need to constantly "rehearse" this information, perhaps by repeating it silently to yourself, to prevent you from forgetting it. Finally, once you have rehearsed the information for long enough, it may enter your long-term memory. These are your long-lasting, nearly permanent memories of everything you have learned in your life, until now.
2.3. Sensory memory: All of your sensory experiences - from the magazine covers that you scan while browsing a bookstore, to the song lyrics that you hear on the radio - are held in memory for the shortest of periods, less than a second.
2.4. Short-term memory: If you do pay attention to something in your surroundings, this information will enter short-term memory. Most people can only hold around 5-9 "items" in their short-term memory at any given time (the average is 7). You must constantly "rehearse" the memory (for instance, by silently repeating the items) to prevent the information from being lost.
