They help us pay attention, comprehend, interpret, remember, make inferences, set expectations, reason, solve problems, understand language structures, read, write, explain what we know, and have a sense of humor. Indeed, some psychological theories treat schemas as the active means by which we continuously affirm our sense of self as well as our knowledge. No one is certain how schemas are acquired, but they do not always require the slow, repetitive reinforcement envisioned in older theories. Rather, people have the ability to pick up prototypical situations quickly, even with one exposure. It is also unclear how people keep from cluttering their minds with proliferating, conflicting, or superstitious schemas.
People seem to have a built-in impulse to organize experience in the form of schemas.
Recent educational theory, however, has begun to consider the possibility of teaching schemas directly. The structures of the mind constantly receive new information and respond to it. New information can have several effects on a reader's existing knowledge structures. These activities are essentially the same as Piaget's categories of assimilation, accommodation, and equilibrium. A reader may use new information to create and maintain cognitive dissonance.