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Cognition

Metacognition, Social Cognition, Embodied Cognition, Language, Sensory Perception, Thinking

Reviewed by Psychology Today Staff

Cognition refers, quite simply, to thinking. There are the obvious applications of conscious reasoning-doing taxes, playing chess, deconstructing Macbeth-but thought takes many subtler forms, such as interpreting sensory input, guiding physical actions, and empathizing with others.

The old metaphor for human cognition was the computer-a logical information-processing machine. You can’t spell cognition without the “cog.” Yet while some of our thoughts may be binary, there's a lot more to our “wetware” than 0's and 1's. Psychological research on cognition focuses not just on thinking, but also on attention, the creation and storage of memories, knowledge acquisition and retention, language learning, and logical reasoning. As people gain new experiences, their cognition can change in subtle but powerful ways.

Contents

Reasoning and Decision Making

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The greatest divide between humans and all other animals resides in our higher-order mental processes. Much of cognition-related research has focused on the broad areas of reasoning and decision-making-including how people apply logic, think through problems, and make choices large and small.

One prominent area of research, for example, was popularized by noted psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky and focuses on the distinction between “fast” and “slow” thinking. Fast thinking is intuitive, automatic, and nearly impossible to switch off, relying on heuristic processes to come to a “good enough” decision. By contrast, slow thinking takes a great deal of time and energy analyzing all available data before reaching a conclusion.

Other areas of interest include cognitive biases, such as humans’ tendency to engage in stereotyping and self-serving biases (believing that one is above average on many traits). Isolating and understanding these biases, most of which occur unconsciously, is thought to help people think more objectively.

How does the brain think?

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The brain processes information using a vast web of brain cells called neurons. Information is detected by and encoded in various neurons, which communicate with each other via electrical signals and chemicals called neurotransmitters. That communication between neurons forms the basis of what we experience as thought.

What are some examples of cognitive biases?

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Common examples of cognitive biases include confirmation bias, or the tendency to search for information that supports what one already believes, and anchoring bias, in which someone gives undue weight to the first piece of information they receive, even if it’s incorrect or incomplete.

For more common cognitive biases, see Bias.

Do thinking styles differ across cultures?

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Research suggests that how one thinks is influenced by the culture in which one lives. People in Western cultures, for example, tend to focus on the attributes of individual objects or ideas and consider parts of a problem separately from the whole; people in Eastern cultures, by contrast, may be more likely to focus on the broader context and the relationships between objects or ideas.

Why can decision-making be so difficult?

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Decision-making can be complicated by external factors such as incomplete information or an urgent deadline. It may also be hindered by internal processes-such as anxiety about making the “wrong” decision or feeling overwhelmed by an excessive number of choices. Evidence also suggests that when two choices promise relatively similar outcomes, it takes longer to determine which one is “best” than it does to distinguish between vastly dissimilar options.

To learn more, see Decision-Making.

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