An image schema (both "schemas" and "schemata" are used as plural forms) is a recurring structure within our cognitive processes which establishes patterns of understanding and reasoning. As an understudy to embodied cognition, image schemas are formed from our bodily interactions, from linguistic experience, and from historical context. The term is introduced in Mark Johnson's book "The Body in the Mind"; in case study 2 of George Lakoff's "Women, Fire and Dangerous Things:" and further explained by Todd Oakley in "The Oxford handbook of cognitive linguistics;" by Rudolf Arnheim in "Visual Thinking"; by the collection "From Perception to Meaning: Image Schemas in Cognitive Linguistics" edited by Beate Hampe and Joseph E. Grady.