What are the basic cognitive processes

To the Mental activity of the brain that we carry out all human beings is given the name of cognition. When we talk about cognition, we refer to the internal interpretation of the information we have stored in the brain, which allows us to capture and have an idea about a thing, such as knowing what their qualities and their nature are.

So cognition is carried out when we make associations from an fact, an observation or a situation. Without this type of qualities, human beings would be unable to have contact with what surrounds us and we could not imagine anything. In this Psychology-online article, we will analyze in detail What are the basic cognitive processes and its function.

1. Basic and higher cognitive processes
2. Perception
3. Attention
4. Memory
5. Thought
6. Language

Basic and higher cognitive processes

An example of cognition would be when we reflect on the advantages and disadvantages of making some kind of decision, such as deciding whether or not to change work, move to another country, choose the professional career to be studied, etc. Apparently, human beings think that kind of thing without some effort, however there are certain mental activities in this case as in this case the basic cognitive processes that help us analyze all that accumulated information in our brain.

The basic cognitive processes are as follows:

1. Perception
2. Attention
3. Memory
4. Thought
5. Language

¿What are higher cognitive processes?

We define the superior cognitive processes such as union or Information integration which comes from basic cognitive processes. A very obvious example of superior cognitive process is The learning since it is the combination of processes such as attention, memory and thought.

Next, we define all basic cognitive processes according to psychology.

1. Perception

It is a mental process in which we organize all the information that comes from the environment or the interior of oneself to finally give a meaning. The interpretation that human beings make of the world around us is mainly determined by the individual personality of each one, the biological structure of our brain, our interests and the experiences that we have acquired throughout our lives. Perception can be divided into:

• Visual perception. Visual perception refers to the ability we have to interpret all that information we perceive through view. This perception began to develop it from babies when we open our eyes for the first time and begin to look around by analyzing everything around us. Generally when we are babies we throw approximately 10 million gladed around us, which means that when we turn our first year of life, we already have a huge amount of information. As the years go by, we are accumulating through sight, a lot of memories and events, which help us when generating our mental representations.
• Auditory perception. This is the ability that human beings have to interpret the information we receive by the ears thanks to the frequencies emitted by sound and air means.
• Tactile perception. This is all that information we perceive through our skin through touch. The brain area that is responsible for carrying out this process is called parietal lobe.
• Olfactory perception. This perception refers to the ability that human beings have to interpret the information that comes from the outside through smell. The areas of the brain that are responsible for carrying out this function is the olfactory bulb and the pyriform cortex.
• Taste perception. This perception refers to the ability we have to interpret the information that comes to us by contacting certain chemical substances with our taste papillae.

2. Attention

Attention is a fundamental and extremely important basic cognitive process since thanks to it we can take awareness of what happens in our environment selecting only those stimuli that will be useful and leaving aside those that are not useful at certain times. When we pay attention and concentrate on one thing we refer to focused attention, however when you attend more than one thing at a time, we talk about divided attention.

Generally, when our attention is divided there may be some loss of information because a greater mental effort is made since several sources of information are rivaling each other. As a metaphor we can say that we are "pecking" some information from each source.

3. Memory

Memory is a extremely important basic cognitive process because the function of receiving, interpreting and storing all the information that reaches our brain. So it can be said that memory is a fundamental process for the development of learning and even so that human beings can have an individual identity. We can generate memories due to the changes generated by neurons through synaptic transmission In certain areas of the brain, such as hippocampus.

We can classify memory into two types: long -term memory and short -term memory.

• The memory long-term It is the one in charge of storing in the mind all those memories, experiences and/or knowledge for a long time
• On the other hand, memory short term, Stores only the information temporarily.

Relationship between basic cognitive processes

It can be said that there is a relationship between attention and memory since when we cross for some situation, we can analyze it or not with more detail depending on the attention we give it. So we can conclude that many of the memory problems are actually caused by not paying attention to the information that is being offered.

4. Thought

Thought is the commission of process all kinds of images, ideas, experiences, sounds, symbols, etc. Thanks to the stimulation of various nervous system components.

According to the cognitive model in psychology, through thought we can really manipulate and transform all that information that we have stored in memory. The thought analyzes, evaluates, classifies, compares, makes judgments and knows how to apply all those knowledge that we have kept in the mind in order to solve problems and create new things taking advantage of all the information. The brain areas that are responsible for the functions carried out by thought are the thalamus, reticular formation and the limbic system, who in turn have certain characteristics that determine the type of thinking that the person will have. Thoughts can become positive, negative, pleasant, unpleasant, etc. And depending on them you can experience different emotions.

5.Language

All the elements that are part of the language, such as phrases, prayers, the sounds of letters, syllables, words, fit each other to offer us information with their own meaning. THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE refers to the investigation of those elements that represent it and that make up a language grammar at the same time. Language can be preserved over time and has been transmitted from generation to generation in society since it allows us to express our thoughts, ideas, emotions and feelings to others.

This activity that at first glance may seem so simple but is extremely complex, allows us to have relationships, All this through materializing certain symbols that explain our emotional states. The term grammar refers to a set of rules that are based on ideas which are part of a speech, also refers to the sum of the knowledge that each of us have about the structure of our language. The areas of the brain involved in the language are that of Broca and the Wernicke area.

This article is merely informative, in psychology-online we have no power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to What are the basic cognitive processes, We recommend that you enter our category of basic psychology.

1. Gloria Fuenmayor, G. F. (1970, January 1). Perception, attention and memory as cognitive processes used for textual understanding. Retrieved November 25, 2018, from http: // www.Redalyc.org/article.OA?ID = 170118859011