COGNITION

the process involved in knowing, or the act of knowing, which in its completeness includes perception and judgment. Cognition includes every mental process that can be described as an experience of knowing as distinguished from an experience of feeling or of willing. It includes, in short, all processes of consciousness by which knowledge is built up, including perceiving, recognizing, conceiving, and reasoning. The essence of cognition is judgment, in which a certain object is distinguished from other objects and is characterized by some concept or concepts. The nature of cognition and the relationship between the knowing mind and external reality have been exhaustively discussed by philosophers since antiquity. Cognition and its development have been subjected to many viewpoints and interpretations. The psychologist is concerned with the cognitive process as it affects learning and behaviour. There are two broad approaches to contemporary cognitive theory. The information-processing approach attempts to understand human thought and reasoning processes by comparing the mind to a sophisticated computer system that is designed to acquire, process, store, and use information according to various programs. The second approach is based on the work of Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget (q.v.; 18961980), who viewed cognitive adaptation in terms of two basic processes: assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is the process whereby an individual interprets reality in terms of his own internal model of the world based on previous experience; whereas, accommodation is the process of changing that model by developing the mechanisms to adjust to reality. Piaget believed that representational thought does not originate in a social language but rather in unique symbols that serve as a foundation for a later, acquired language. The American psychologist Jerome S. Bruner (b. 1915) broadened Piaget's concept by suggesting that the cognitive process is effected by the three modes we use to represent our world: the enactive mode involves representation through action; the iconic mode uses visual and mental images; and the symbolic mode uses language.