Memory is malleable primarily to facilitate knowledge construction, allowing the brain to build schemas, which are “structures that people use to organize current knowledge and provide a framework for future understanding,” stated by Van Kesteren (2020). To make a dynamic system work for you, the brain engages in a process called semanticization, where specific episodic details (the “who, what, where, when”) fade over time during consolidation, leaving behind a generalized semantic network. This process is supported by predictive coding, a theory stating that our brains evolved to “predict what will happen next” by maintaining a “clear and consistent world model”. When we encounter information that fits this model, we use: 

• Assimilation: the integration of new information into an existing schema (Van Kesteren, 2020). 

• Accommodation: the adaptation of an existing schema when new information no longer fits the old model (Van Kesteren, 2020).

A popular misconception, first proposed by Endel Tulving in 1972, is that episodic memory (spatiotemporal, personal experiences) and semantic memory (generalized knowledge) are “delineated cleanly” into two contrastive systems (De Brigard et al., 2022). However, current research by De Brigard, Umanath, and Irish (2022) reveals “increasingly blurred lines between episodic and semantic encoding and retrieval”. The system relies on different states of consciousness: 

• Autonoetic consciousness: self-knowing, typically associated with episodic memory.

• Noetic consciousness: knowing, associated with semantic memory. 

Current findings suggest these are “strongly intertwined during spontaneous cognition,” and that “knowledge structures can and do enhance memories of events”. Memory is a “dynamic system” that is “reconstructed depending on present cues” rather than retrieved as a “solid entity”. 

The power of schemas in knowledge construction is demonstrated in a meta-analysis by Mar et al. (2021), which found that narratives (stories) are consistently better remembered than expository texts (essays/textbooks). 

• Story Grammar: narratives follow a familiar structure, including setting, theme, plot, and resolution.

• Knowledge-based Inferences: because stories map onto “everyday human experience,” readers can generate inferences that bring coherence to the content. 

• In contrast, expository texts often communicate “unfamiliar concepts and vocabulary” that do not easily fit into existing daily schemas, making them harder to recall.

Habits are often governed by cognitive scripts, which act like instructions that we follow depending on the situation we are in and are based on past experiences. We often fall victim to the self-consistency fallacy, the assumption that "I have always acted in a certain way; therefore, I must continue to act this way” (Le Cunff, 2025). Habits can change through unlearning the process of shifting from linear, “purpose-driven” goals to “experiments”. Le Cunff (2025) suggests adopting a “fieldwork” mindset, acting as an “anthropologist” of your own life to “discover interesting patterns” and “deactivate your cognitive scripts”. Because retrieval triggers reconsolidation, every time a habit or memory is “reactivated,” it enters a state where it can be “modified and integrated” with new information before being stored again. 

To optimize this malleable architecture, students should use high-utility identified by Dunlosky et al. (2013):

• Elaborative Interrogation: generating an explanation for “why” a fact is true helps “activate schemas” and support the “integration of new information with existing prior knowledge”.

• Practice Testing: this triggers “elaborative retrieval processes” that create multiple pathways to information, making the memory trace more durable. 

• Distributed Practice: spacing out study sessions allows for consolidation during sleep, which “generalizes memories” and builds “stronger schemas”.

Summarization 

• • Boosts learning and involves attending to and extracting the higher-level meaning and gist of the material 

  • More beneficial = almost like note-taking 

  • Organizational processing 

Quality of summaries matters 

• • If it includes incorrect information, it is not expected to benefit learning and retention 

  • The higher the quality of summaries that contained more information that was linked to prior knowledge, were associated with better the performance 

Sleep - the most important means to consolidate, integrate, and semanticize memories 

• • Letting memories “rest” and then later coming back to them on a regular basis = a good tactic to make strong schemas 

  • Getting enough sleep per night (especially when studying new information) 

  • Regular breaks between studying 

  • Adding emotional value to-be-learned information or actively repeating information through auditory