COGNITIVE  FUNCTIONS

Cognitive psychologists study cognitive functions to understand how we acquire information and process that information. To understand how this works, think about your life. In what ways do you acquire information, and how do you use that information? Many processes are involved in acquiring information, including listening, watching, reading, searching out information, or just paying attention to things around you. In all cases, you are using your cognitive functions to gather information.

Cognitive functions include:

• Attention
• Memory
• Language
• Perception
• Decision making
• Problem solving

Each cognitive function works to help you gather and process information, and they often work together in interrelated processes. Let's take a closer look at how all of these work in action.

Memory, Decision Making, and Problem Solving

Say that you are engaged in conversation with your mother over where you should eat for dinner. Your mother is providing you several reasons why it is better to eat at restaurant A. You, on the other hand, want to eat at restaurant B. As you discuss the pros and cons of each restaurant, you have to keep the comments your mother makes in your head. You also have to pull from your existing knowledge and create a counter argument to your mother's comments. This process involves your working memory. Working memory is the cognitive function whereby you keep information in mind to work on it and solve a particular problem. In this case, you are keeping information your mother tells you in mind, while simultaneously thinking about how you can use that information against your mother.

Although we can't see and measure how and where that information is stored in the brain, we still have been studying working memory for many years. In fact, a fairly complex theory for how it works exists. The basic theory of working memory suggests that there are several components of the working memory system that include a phonological loop for storing verbal content, a visual spatial sketch pad for storing visual information, and a central executive that oversees everything. Conceptualizing these elements helps us to see how memory works and the different underlying mental processes that occur when we engage in the cognitive function.