Here’s a fun exercise:
Imagine, for a moment, that you’re in a posh restaurant with your family, celebrating a meal. Take a moment to really picture the scene and to think about the tablecloth, the walls, and the people.
And you’re back! Now, assessing the scene you just visualized, let me ask you: was the décor largely red or dark red? Was there quiet, classical music in the background? Was the restaurant quite full? Were you at a round table? Were there waiters with white cloths over their arms and silver platters in their hands?
If you answered ‘yes’ to many of these questions, then that probably means you were relying on your ‘schema’, and it might be hampering your imagination!
What is a Schema?
When you picture a scene in your mind, your brain has to draw on past experience in order to come up with something. It would take much more effort to pick out the tablecloth, the curtains, and the music all individually, and so, instead, it goes with the ‘average’ of what you have often seen. This is what you call your ‘schema’.
The restaurant that I just described is a common schema for many people, because it is the scene that we will often see on TV or in films. We have schema for all kinds of things, meanwhile, varying from people to professions to places.
Incidentally, we all have a schema for what a ‘person’ looks like, and when we watch cartoons, we tend to project this image onto them. This is why characters in Asian anime cartoons look Western to people in the US and UK but look Asian to people in China and Japan!
What’s Schemata With That?
Schemas are not problematic and, in fact, are a very useful tool that allows our brain to work faster and more efficiently. However, the problem occurs when we are trying to be imaginative and to create a scene or even an idea from scratch. Very often, unless we sit down to really think of unique ideas, we will simply pull out the most prevalent ‘schema’ for our restaurant scene or our living room scene, and this can come across as a little unimaginative.
So, if you’re writing a story or coming up with a new idea or creation, try to make sure that it’s really you who’s generating those ideas, and reach a little deeper to think outside of the box.
