The same applies for reading written text. Written text is simply a graphic representation of language; meaning is actually derived by the person reading it (Brown & Lee, 2015). For example, take the word “stress” in the phrase “stress affects performance.”

Without enough context, two people with different schemata for “stress” will derive different meanings for it. Because the narrative on stress for many years has been about its negative side effects, such as diminished performance and health consequences, many people believe stress is only harmful (Crum et al., 2013). Their schemata would influence the way they interpret the phrase “stress affects performance.” On the other hand, those who understand the helpful biological responses that occurs during stress, such as heightened and narrowed awareness, useful for achieving goals and getting one to take action, may view stress in a more positive light. They may bring to the text an awareness that the phrase “stress affects performance” can have either a positive or negative meaning.

The point here is that words in a written text are just words. They mean something a bit different for everyone, and this derived meaning is dictated by schemata. One reason this happens is because of how our brains work. As discussed by Kelly and Ryan in their article on predictive processing in our October, 2020 Think Tank, a lot of our perception is interpreted in a top-down fashion; the “templates” that are already in our heads are used to make sense of the world, and the same mechanism is used to help make sense of language.

Therefore, schemata are useful not just for understanding language, but also for making predictions and giving us expectations. In order to see how schemata and its predictive power works for language learning purposes, let’s look at another example, taken from the wonderful book 10 Essential Instructional Elements for Students with Reading Difficulties: A Brain-Friendly Approach by Johnson (2016):

 Please fill in the blank….

          “The monkey ate a b_____.”

Could you, the reader, predict the next word? Of course, you can; it is “banana.” The answer is obvious, but let us investigate what we already know, as the wise psychologist Harold Kelley once said: “The careful explication and systematization of what at first seems obvious eventually carries us into realms of discovery and insight” (1973, p. 108). Thanks to our schemata on monkeys, we can quickly predict what the answer is. This knowledge simply comes from experience, maybe from watching television or trips to the zoo. Now consider this: what if you grew up in a place where monkeys only eat berries? Or what if, in that place, monkeys eat berries 50% of the time and bananas 50% of the time. This would mean people from that society, with different schemata for monkeys, would answer the question differently. They may even doubt reality and shift their attention to understanding why the answer was bananas rather than berries in the first place. In the classroom, this division of attention would take away from task completion (e.g., a reading test, quizzes, etc…).