Cognitive skills are a series of skills that human beings have when it comes to capturing certain information. These skills involve the use of attention, memory, creativity, and abstract thinking. The thinking of the human being brings together a series of actions or processes such as the capture and interpretation of certain stimuli, their storage in memory and the subsequent response.
Cognitive skills are directly related to the intelligence, learning and development of the person. They are essential when it comes to ensuring that said person is able to grow intellectually and cognitively and to be able to face the different activities that arise throughout his life.
How Cognitive Skills Can Be Grouped
Cognitive skills can be grouped into four well-differentiated parts:
- The first part consists of the forecast of a certain event. The person has the ability to observe in detail the future consequences of taking a certain action. If said consequences were not as expected, the person can desist at any time from carrying out said action. Foresight is essential and very important so that the person can coexist without any problem within society.
- The second part is known as planning and is nothing more than the person's ability to foresee future consequences derived from actions taken. This ability is important to set a series of goals in life.
- The evaluation is the third part within the cognitive abilities. It is about the ability of the person to be able to analyze a certain action and whether or not to correct it in order to reach the desired point.
- Innovation is the last part of such skills and consists of the ability to look for a series of alternatives to achieve the objectives set or set. The person takes past experiences and from there acts to reach such goals throughout his life.
Cognitive skills classes
There are two classes or types of cognitive abilities:
The first are cognitive skills as such and they are those that allow the person to elaborate knowledge. These skills are as follows:
- The ability to serve or capture certain details.
- Comprehension or ability to understand what is captured.
- The elaboration of a certain answer before what is perceived.
- The memorization of what has been lived to serve as a basis for future experiences.
Metacognitive skills are the second type of cognitive skills that exist and They allow the person to control, know and regulate the different cognitive mechanisms. It is nothing other than the ability you have to learn.
Examples of cognitive abilities or skills
Next we are going to show you some examples of cognitive abilities:
- Linguistic ability is the ability of the person to handle the use of language without problems. It can include grammar, lexicon, or syntax.
- The capacity of attention consists of the possibility of perceiving more than what other people are capable of perceiving. It includes elements such as concentration or speed when answering a certain question.
- The capacity for abstraction is nothing more than the ability of the person to interpret complex systems at the mental and translate them into simpler and more concrete systems. This is the case of imagination or mathematical reasoning.
- The deductive capacity or ability of the person to be able to intuit different situations. It would be the case of logical or intuitive reasoning.
Ultimately, Cognitive abilities are abilities and mental faculties that human beings have to be able to understand the world around them. These skills are key when it comes to processing the different stimuli related to the five senses such as sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. The set of such skills makes up the intellectual capacity that people have. Cognitive skills teach learning and thinking, in this way we have a reality of what we are studying and the best way to develop and apply it.