The schema : a structural or a functional pattern
Asghar Iran‐Nejad · Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) · 1980
Current theories of reading comprehension have been based on the assumptionthat cognitive patterns (schemata) are structural constructs, and credit for the structural assumption is generally given to Bartlett (1932).In this paper it is suggested that problems concerning the phenomenal nature of the patterning aspect of cognition may be more readily resolved at a functional level.It is also argued that Bartlett perhaps never meant his schema theory to be one about the structural aspect of cognition.The interpretation of his theory as such is perhaps no more than an oversight on the part of current cognitive scientists.An alternative view of schemata as phenomenally transient functional patterns is presented.