Cognition is the process of knowing. It encompasses all experiences of consciousness by which knowledge is acquired, as distinguished from experiences of feeling or willing. These experiences include the processes of perceiving, recognizing, conceiving, and reasoning. Cognition is also a branch of psychology. Cognitive psychologists study the physiological mechanisms that occur in the brain as a function of conscious knowing. Short and long-term memory, visual-spatial determination, problem solving, and language development are a few of the aspects cognitive psychologists refer to when talking about cognition. Cognitive science also entails studies of artificial intelligence, age-related changes in memory and learning, and the development of dementia (a condition marked by a decline in an individual's ability to think and learn).
One of the most basic cognitive functions is the ability to conceptualize, or group individual items together as instances of a single concept or category. Concepts provide the fundamental framework for thought, allowing people to relate most objects and events they encounter to preexisting categories. People learn concepts by building prototypes to which variations are added and by forming and testing hypotheses about which items belong to a particular category. Most thinking combines concepts in different forms. Examples include propositions (proposals or possibilities), mental models (visualizing the physical form an idea might take), schemas (diagrams or maps), scripts (scenarios), and images (physical models of the item). Other fundamental aspects of cognition are reasoning, the process by which people formulate arguments and arrive at conclusions, and problem solving--devising a useful representation of a problem and planning, executing, and evaluating a solution.
Memory is another cognitive function that is crucial to learning, communication, and even to one's sense of identity. Short-term memory provides the basis for one's working model of the world and makes possible most other mental functions; long-term memory stores information for longer periods of time. The three basic processes common to both short- and long-term memory are encoding, which deposits information in the memory; storage; and retrieval.
The cognitive function that most distinctively sets humans apart from other animals is the ability to communicate through language, which involves expressing propositions as sentences and understanding such expressions when we hear or read them. Language also enables the mind to communicate with itself.
Since the 1950s, cognitive psychology, which focuses on the relationship between cognitive processes and behavior, has occupied a central place in psychological research. The cognitive psychologist studies human perceptions and the ways in which cognitive processes operate on them to produce responses. Cognitive psychologists have studied such issues as the ways in which needs, motivations, and expectations affect perception; whether or not language exists in the mind prior to experience; curiosity and information seeking; personal constructs; and individual perceptual and cognitive styles.
The development of the modern computer has influenced current ways of thinking about cognition through simulation of cognitive processes and through the creation of information-processing models. Within these models, cognition is portrayed as a system receiving, representing, and manipulating information in various ways. The senses transmit information from outside stimuli to the brain, which perceives, interprets, and then responds to the information. The information may be stored in the memory or it may be acted on.
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