Elaboration involves connecting incoming information to the knowledge in one’s long term memory. A schema is defined as a collection of ideas that represents a basic unit of understanding. For example, as children we may pick up a variety of objects, such as chalk, a pencil, pen, or crayons. As we examine these different objects and play with them, we figure out (elaboration) that all of these objects can be used to write with, whether we have scribbled with them on paper or on the walls. Therefore, our schema would be “things to write with.”
As we get older, the way that we build schemas is more elaborate, based on what we experience in life and how we respond to our social environment. We also learn by watching other people. For example, if a person interested in chemistry witnesses other people getting burned by chemicals and also experiences one herself, the schema would be “caustic chemicals.”
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A personal experience that I have learned from has to do with people. I feel that I can read most people fairly well. In my lifetime, I have figured out that people who say that they will do something, but do not do it, cannot be trusted and depended on. For instance, my car broke down for a week. I had asked a friend if I could get a ride with him to school. He promised me that he would pick me up, but he never showed up. When I called him later, he apologized and said that he forgot and would pick me up the next day. The same thing happened the next day. Instead of calling him later that day, I put him into the schema of “People who cannot be depended on.” I never asked him for a ride again. I have known people who constantly cancel plans. I have bought concert tickets where people have not paid for them and also canceled out. Once again, I have put them into the schema category of “people who cannot be depended on.”
Schemas and elaboration help us to form memories. As we get older, we use life experience and observation to form more elaborate schemas and to become experts at people or in our field.
