COGNITIVE PROCESSES: TYPES AND CHARACTERISTICS - PSYCHOLOGY - 2025

The cognitive processes are the strategies that determine our performance in mental or cognitive activities. They allow thought, perception, information storage, and interpretation of the external world to happen, among others.

These types of strategies are essential to being able to learn. For example, we would not acquire knowledge if our senses did not work well (perception), if we could not focus on what we are going to learn (attention), or if we were not able to store information (memory).

Not only do we learn at school or in formal contexts, but learning is an activity that we do every day. We are programmed to learn since acquiring certain knowledge is a powerful survival mechanism. For example, we can remember where the dangerous places are, where you can get water, or simply that if we touch the fire we burn ourselves.

This knowledge and other more complex ones can be acquired in many different ways. Some are more effective or faster than others, what is clear is that what helps us to learn are our cognitive processes.

Cognitive processes are linked to the way we process the information we receive from our senses. Thus, we select what is important, we order it, we retain it, and then we integrate it with other knowledge that we already have to memorize it and use it in the future.

These processes are complex, difficult to break down in small steps, and are closely related to memory, since learning requires remembering.

What are the types of basic cognitive processes?

Perception processes

Perception is much more complex than we think. It is not only hearing, seeing, touching, smelling or tasting, there are many factors involved. For example, we are more likely to pick up on something if we are paying attention to it.

In addition, the previous knowledge that we have and our expectations influence. This can be observed in the moments in which our senses play us "tricks".

For example, when we are waiting for a friend and we think we see him; Or, when we are surprised with optical illusions and impossible images, since our experience has taught us that it is impossible for them to exist.

In short, to learn we need our senses to be working and focused on the correct stimuli.

Attention processes

They are closely related to perception, in fact, we perceive more consciously what we pay attention to. Thus, when we are talking to someone, we listen and listen to what they tell us.

We may know what we are talking about, but if you close your eyes and try to say what color is the pants he's wearing, you wouldn't know how to answer. It doesn't mean that you haven't seen the color, just that you haven't paid enough attention to remember it.

As you may have guessed, attention is a mechanism that works as a filter that saves our resources and energy. If we had to attend to everything we capture, we would be exhausted in no time. So attention is a process that can be focused on some stimuli and restrict others.

Attention is what will allow certain elements to pass into our memory stores in the short and long term.

Learn to focus our attention on the correct stimuli, ignoring those that distract us, knowing how to maintain it for a long time, or being able to change it from one place to another when necessary; It is something that contributes greatly to cognitive development in general. And, therefore, to the learning and acquisition of new knowledge.

Encoding processes

Encoding is the process where information is prepared so that it can be saved. It can be encoded as experiences, images, sounds, ideas, or events.

For meaningful learning to take place that facilitates retention and memorization, information needs to be organized, interpreted, and understood; that is, it is encoded.

They are processes of the so-called working memory or operative memory, which is what makes it possible for new knowledge to be related to information already stored in long-term memory.

This type of memory is limited and temporary, being the minimum necessary to carry out any activity. This mechanism also allows data to be compared, contrasted or related to each other.

For example, working memory allows us to remember the previous sentence of a text while reading the next, even keeping our own thoughts flowing or understanding what others are saying.

Retention and recall process

Coding facilitates the retention of information, while learning depends on recall. That is, the information that we can retrieve (remember) is the proof that we have learned.

This corresponds to long-term memory, which is what allows new data to be stored and said data to be retrieved for use when appropriate. That way, we can recall past experiences and knowledge, even re-modify and save them with the new changes in our warehouse.

The main strategies to memorize correctly in order for learning to occur are:

• Make summaries and diagrams
• Paraphrasing, that is, repeating the information we just received or asking another person to ask us about what we are memorizing to repeat it with our words.

Requirements for good memorization:

• Understand what we are holding in our memory and if there are doubts, try to solve them. If what is stored is not understood, it may last for a short time in our memory as it will not be very useful to us.
• It is better to rethink the data and not repeat the same phrases in our head. That is, the elements that we have worked on, reflected on, commented on, translated into our words, handled directly or extracted an opinion are better memorized. As if instead of having received them from a teacher, we look for it ourselves and investigate.

This is a good way to "appropriate" our knowledge.

Define

The information that we are going to learn must be well defined, differentiated and clear. It begins by learning the fundamental and main aspects of a concept, and little by little elements and details are added to outline the definition.

Tips to build correct definitions:

- Have a correct length, that is, neither be too wide (too many details that make it complex) nor too short (missing important data).

- Avoid being circular. By this I mean that concepts that are not understood and mutually linked should not appear in the definition. You will understand it better with an example of a circular definition: “neurons are cells that have axons” and then define axons as “elements that are part of neurons”. Therefore, for someone who does not know the concept of neuron or axon, the definition would be useless.

- Avoid being negative: those statements that are written in positive are better understood. It is more appropriate to define something by its characteristics than by its deficiencies. For example, it is better to define “light” as something “luminous, that receives or has light” than to define it as “the opposite of dark”.

- Try not to fall into ambiguity, or use figurative language or language not adapted to the age and knowledge of the person.

Analysis and synthesis

It involves breaking an idea into smaller parts to take a closer look at its elements. That is, to understand something we use as a technique to divide it into its different components. They serve to…

• Label a complex situation by identifying its elements. It is similar to making a diagnosis.
• Detect the causes that have produced a phenomenon and use this knowledge to apply it in the future.
• Make objective judgments of a fact.
• Learn to plan according to our needs and check if the plan has worked.

Analysis and synthesis facilitate our understanding of information and, therefore, its subsequent storage.

Comparison

It is our ability to build relationships of differences or similarities between situations, elements, concepts or events.

In order to make a comparison we need two requirements: the elements to be compared and what criteria we are going to base ourselves on. For example, if we compare several situations by their level of danger, or some objects by their weight.

Classification

It consists of establishing classes, subtypes or subgroups from a set of elements. For this, we need to set one or more criteria that said group will have in common: color, shape, number, age, academic level, sex, etc. Thus, the similar is united and the different is separated.

These last two elements, comparison and classification, are useful tools for organizing your data. If the data is well structured and organized, it is better assimilated.

Experimentation

Finding out for yourself what works and what doesn't through hypothesis-making and empirical testing is a good way to learn. It all starts with an idea that we want to test (hypothesis) and then we execute a plan to see what happens.

For example, trying to add a new ingredient to a recipe to see if its flavor has changed as expected.

The cognitive schemas that underlie this experimentation have been active since we are infants, and we continually learn by making hypotheses and testing or rejecting them.

Generalization processes

It is the ability we have to be able to use the information learned and apply it to very diverse events. This determines that the learning has been significant.

An example may be to remember the spelling rules learned in school to know where to put the accents when we are writing a letter to a friend. In this way, you not only memorized the spelling rules, but you also know how to apply them in whatever context you need.

Inference, interpretation and deduction processes

Through these processes we can reach new conclusions, only by making derivations of information that we already have.

It resembles the work of a detective: at first he sees that the clues he finds seem to have no connection, but based on reflections and interpretations he reaches the conclusion and solves the problem.

We continually make these interpretations and inferences, although we must be very careful because we are at risk of making mistakes and reaching conclusions that do not coincide with reality.

Metacognitive processes

They are very large and complex processes, and they are associated with controlling our own performance. It consists of monitoring if we are doing things well, evaluating them, and correcting our behavior if necessary. It can also be defined as "thinking about how we think."

References

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6. Rodríguez González, R. and Fernández Orviz, M. (1997). Cognitive development and early learning: the written language in early childhood education. University of Oviedo Publications Service.