Cognitive processes: their content and types

The cognitive activity of a person begins with birth and is an integral part of his consciousness. It involves a variety of systems that process information and differ in the channel for obtaining it. These are cognitive processes. Let us consider in more detail their content and types.

Cognitive processes are mental phenomena that are necessary for rational study and awareness of the world around us. They include perception, sensation, imagination, thinking and memory. Each of them is independent, but, working together, they provide cognitive activity rights.

The sensations are related to the fact that there are various effects on the specialized receptor apparatus. Due to this the organism perceives signals of stimuli from the environment (external and internal). Therefore, skin, olfactory, taste, auditory, visual, muscular and sense of balance are distinguished.

Cognitive processes include perception. It is an integral reflection of situations, objects and events that arise when they directly affect the receptor surface. Due to perception, direct sensual orientation in the surrounding world is provided. With him, to a lesser or greater degree, are associated such cognitive processes as memory and thinking. Let us consider them in more detail.

Thinking is a mediated and generalized reflection of reality. In man, it has several types that "flow" into different cognitive styles.

Visual-efficient thinking is able to function, processing information that the subject receives by performing certain actions. The most common is in a child under three years old.

Visual-figurative thinking is aimed at recreating the "mold" of reality. It develops in a child between the ages of three and ten in the game.

Abstract thinking can establish logical connections between phenomena of reality.

Memory includes the process of formation and preservation of experience from the past, which make it possible to re-use it in activities. Such cognitive processes connect the past with the future and the present for the subject. Therefore, memory is the most important cognitive function that underlies teaching and development.

Imagination is a mental process, which is expressed in:

• The construction of the image and result of human activity;
• The formation of a program of communication and behavior in a situation where the problem is uncertain;
• Creating an image that does not program, but replaces the activity;
• Building an object that corresponds to the description.

The most important function of the imagination is that it will allow you to present the final result of your activity before it starts. Due to this, the person's orientation is in the process of its implementation.

Therefore, cognitive processes, working together, are an essential component of cognitive activity.