Cognitive Functions
Cognitive functions are the set of processes through which an individual perceives, encodes, stores, retrieves, and manipulates information to produce adaptive behavior.
(The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Science)Cognitive Functions:
- Perception: The process of interpreting sensory information (Transforming the impact of the external environment—light, sound, temperature, etc.—on our sensory organs into our sensations of that impact).
- Attention: The ability to focus on specific stimuli or tasks (e.g., the ability to focus on a required task amidst distracting factors like noise, light, people).
- Memory: The processes of encoding, storing, and retrieving information (What, how, and why we remember things better or worse, as well as how easily we retrieve stored information).
- Language: The ability to understand and produce communication (How we interpret meanings and how we are able to convey ideas to others using words).
- Motor Skills: The planning and execution of movements (Dexterity and the ability to perform movements sequentially and clearly, for example, in dancing).
- Executive Functions: Higher-order processes that regulate other cognitive functions (mediated by the prefrontal cortex).
- Emotion Processing and Regulation: The ability to recognize emotional states in oneself and others, as well as to manage them.
