The technical term for this process of organizing your experience according to a preexisting template is “probabilistic generative model.” It means that information—anything you see, hear, smell, touch, or taste—goes first to your emotional brain, where prior learning (possibly about lemons or little rat jackets, possibly about body image or sexual disgust) plus your present brain state (stress, love, self-criticism, disgust, etc.) combine to shape the initial decisions your brain makes about whether to move toward or away from that information.
