The cognitive habilyties are the competences related to cognition, that is, the ability, conscious or unconscious, to take the information received, and process it based on previously acquired knowledge.
However, we rarely pay attention to what these cognitive abilities are, how they act and what mechanisms are involved in the many mental processes that our brain performs on a daily basis..
When we talk about skills, we are talking about all those capacities that our brain has to function and work with the information we acquire from our environment..
The first cognitive ability that we use to be able to obtain any type of information from our environment is perception. It is the process that has the function of coding and coordinating the various elementary sensations to give them meaning..
And why is perception important?
When you read, listen or touch anything, the first function you put in place is perception:
This means that the way you see things, perceive them and interpret them, is the starting point to be able to perform the rest of cognitive functions, since it modulates the way in which information reaches your brain.
In addition, what makes this cognitive ability special is that, unlike other cognitive abilities, it is more marked by internal psychological determinants than by cognitive abilities..
Aspects such as experience, fears, obsessions, desires, expectations or values, modulate perception, so our psychological state plays a very important role in determining the way in which information reaches us. mind.
Apart from perception, another cognitive function that plays a fundamental role in the entry of information into our brain is attention.
When it comes to receiving information, the way we perceive it is as important as the elements we pay attention to. In other words, attention modulates the components that we will perceive.
Our brain captures numerous stimuli, but only some are conscious, the rest are subliminally perceived. Attention is therefore a process that chooses which stimuli we are going to capture. It is a kind of filter that our mind has to introduce into our brain that information that is relevant.
Attention is an adaptive process, since it allows us to better capture the environment and respond effectively.
In addition, as you already know, we can direct the attention. More specifically, care performs 3 processes:
We could say that attention, together with perception, are two capacities that human beings possess that act as prerequisites for information to reach our brain, and therefore play a fundamental role in the rest of the cognitive processes.
Namely:
If you perceive things properly and pay attention to relevant things, the mental processes that you do later will benefit, since they will be working with adequate information.
However, if you perceive things in a distorted way, pay attention to irrelevant stimuli or are unable to maintain your attention on important aspects, your cognitive processes will have an added difficulty, since the information they will have to work will not be adequate.
Once the information has reached the neurons of your brain, the next essential element so that the tasks performed by attention and perception are not in vain is understanding..
Understanding, as you well know, refers to "understanding" the information that has just come to us. However, we cannot define understanding as a single process, or a single ability, but rather as a set of them..
Understanding involves a series of processes such as analysis, criticism or reflection, which are articulated by our mind in an interactive way. For example, when you read a news item in the newspaper, factors such as:
The interaction between these processes will dictate your ability to understand any information that you want to be stored in your neurons, that is, any information that you perceive and want to pay attention to..
Once the processed information reaches your brain, the mechanism that starts up is memory (what we remember). But what do we mean by memory? Perhaps as Cofer said:
"If our memories were perfect and never failed in times of need, we would probably not feel the slightest interest in them ".
This statement conceives memory as a mere memory, or rather, as a set of memories and stored information, but memory is much more than that..
And you may wonder ... If memory is not memory, what is it? For memory is a process or set of processes that allow information to be encoded, stored and retrieved, once it "has entered" our neurons.
To see more clearly everything that memory implies, let's see the different types of memory that we have.
The sensory is a memory of very little duration (from 1 to 3 seconds) that works together with the perception system to process the information that we want to enter our mind.
That is, when we perceive any stimulus, our brain already begins to remember, and through this sensory memory, our perceptual system is given just the right amount of time to be able to memorize the element that is entering..
Short-term memory acts as a working memory: when sensory memory has already done its work that has allowed us to perceive information, this short-term memory comes into play (which lasts from 18 to 30 seconds).
This short-term memory keeps available (memorizes) the information that has just been perceived for a few seconds so that it can be stored correctly.
In addition, this working memory also reactivates materials stored in long-term memory, in order to integrate the new information with what was previously possessed..
Once sensory memory and short-term memory have acted, long-term memory appears, "memory with capital letters".
This type of memory is what is popularly known as "memory", and it contains all that information that has already been stored in our brain, it contains our memories.
Closely linked to memory we find language. By language is understood the ability to relate a system of codes, with meanings of objects from the outside world, as well as their actions, qualities and relationships between them..
Language could be considered a special form of memory, which allows us to automatically remember the relationship between a word and a meaning.
By orientation we understand the set of psychic functions that allow us to realize, at all times, the real situation in which we find ourselves. In other words, your experiences and memories make it possible for you to be aware of your own person and of your situation in space and time..
However, your orientation is not a simple memory, it is the conjunction of multiple memories and knowledge that come together. For example: When you are on a road in an unfamiliar place, you may have the ability to orient yourself while driving..
But this orientation capacity is not a simple memory, many other capacities come into play:
It may help that you have looked at the map previously and remember some aspect of the road, it is possible that your knowledge about the country or the region in which you are located also contributes to the orientation, or that your more general knowledge about the typical operation of roads and tracks is key for you to orient yourself.
The interaction of different parts of our brain and different mental processes, allows us to have a general capacity that allows us to orient ourselves both in space, time and in person.
Praxis is the ability we have to carry out voluntary, purposeful and organized movements. The ability that allows you to perform any movement with any part of your body is regulated by the specific regions of your brain that make up the praxis..
There are 4 different types of praxis.
Executive functions could be conceived as "the glue" of our cognitive abilities. They are the ones in charge of starting, organizing, integrating and managing the rest of the functions that our brain has..
Let's take an example:
You want to make yourself a fried egg. In your long-term memory it is perfectly stored that to do it you first have to take a pan, pour oil into it and wait for it to heat up, break the egg and put it on top of the boiling oil.
So far very well, you remember it perfectly. However, without your executive functions you would be unable to do it!!
And it is that without them, you would not be able to perceive the situation, make your working memory work correctly to remember that you just picked up the pan, put that information together with your memories of how to make a fried egg or properly plan those memories.
The reasoning would be like "the plus" that our brain contains to be able to perform superior operations. With reasoning we are able to perform organizing functions related to logic, strategy, planning or problem solving.
Reasoning allows us to integrate the information that we have stored in our neurons, so that we can "acquire new knowledge through what we already know".
With this cognitive ability our ideas, judgments or conclusions appear.
Finally, a last cognitive ability that I would like to comment on is that which goes beyond cognition, metacognition. Metacognitive abilities control, direct, improve and apply problem solving on cognitive abilities.
In other words, metacognition is what allows us to learn how our brain works, taking care of things like:
Yet No Comments