“Fundamentally, neurons connect when they are stimulated together. A schema is a set of related concepts that define a mental object. When any of the sub-concepts in the schema arise in the mind as a result of external stimuli, the associated neurons fire, and cause some firing of connected neurons. So, if you read, ‘large, gray, mammal, trunk, tusk’, your brain is primed to fire ‘elephant,’ and many other ideas associated with an elephant. I’m oversimplifying, but you get the idea. One interesting consequence of all this is the associative rut, which is when your mind gets stuck in some area of mental space because all of the concepts lead to one another in a circular way.”