cognition
noun
Cognition — the mind's work of knowing, gathered from perception and thought
Definition
The psychological result of perception and learning and reasoning
In depth
Cognition is the psychological product of perceiving, learning, and reasoning — the broad mental process by which raw experience is transformed into knowledge, judgment, and understanding. The word names not any single thought but the entire machinery of thinking itself, the mind's quiet, constant labor of making sense.
Origin
The word descends from Latin cognoscere, to come to know, formed from con- (thoroughly) and gnoscere (to know) — the same root behind 'recognize' and 'notion.' Its adoption into English psychology in the early modern period gave scientists a precise term for the mind's knowledge-producing activity, distinct from the older, broader word 'thought.'
Usage examples
"The study tracked changes in cognition across the decades of a long human life."
"Grief, she found, dulled her cognition in ways no one had warned her about, fogging even simple decisions."
"Philosophers have argued for centuries over whether cognition can ever be fully separated from emotion."
How to use it
Cognition is a technical, scientific term most at home in psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy of mind. In literary prose it lends a clinical, often slightly distancing precision to descriptions of thought, useful when a writer wants to render mental process analytically rather than emotionally.
Related concepts
Looking for a word but don't know its name?
Try the Word Finder →