Quotes About Cognition

Never underestimate the power of the human mind to believe what it wants to believe, no matter the conflicting evidence.

People understand ideas when ideas relate to something they already know.

The current opinion is that the human brain is better at comparing relative sizes of rectangles than pie slices or donut sections.

at a seminal yet still little known moment in history, Homo sapiens developed the full battery of cognitive skills that we ourselves possess. After a surprisingly short time, perhaps a mere five thousand years, their descendants moved northward into Eurasia and Europe.

When a thing is told to you and you can't remember it happening it doesn't count somehow. It is as though it had nothing to do with you. Remembering, that's what counts.

He was cognizant that perception would be as important as experience.

Our conscious memory is full of gaps, of course, which is actually a good thing. Our brains filter out the ordinary and expected, which is utterly necessary to allow us to function. When you drive, for example, you rely automatically on your previous experiences with cars and roads; if you had to focus on every aspect of what your senses are taking in, you'd be overwhelmed and would probably crash.

The capacity to control your dissociative capabilities is very powerful. It allows people to be good at reflective cognition. It allows people to have intense focus on a specific task. Hypnosis, flow, being "in the zone"-all of these are examples of the trance state that dissociation allows. People who learn to control when and how they go into a trance state have a gift…be careful about labeling dissociation as a pathology…It can be an incredible strength.

the more threatened or stressed we are, the less access we have to the smart part of our brain, the cortex

In order to function socially, people need to develop what is known as a "theory of mind.

All experience is processed from the bottom up, meaning, to get to the top, "smart" part of our brain, we have to go through the lower, not-so-smart part. This sequential processing means that the most primitive, reactive part of our brain is the first part to interpret and act on the information coming in from our senses. Bottom line: Our brain is organized to act and feel before we think.

El desarrollo del cerebro es uso-dependiente: o lo usas o lo pierdes.

how changes in our emotional state can affect how we learn.

The mind wants to see what we believe, so it clings to things that support those beliefs—that worldview—and ignores things that don't. But trauma shatters this inner landscape. Your worldviews are broken to pieces.

Memory is the capacity to carry forward in time some element of an experience.

para la evaluación clínica resulta fundamental saber que, cuanta más ansiedad siente una persona, más difícil le resulta recordar y describir sus sentimientos, pensamientos e historia con exactitud.

The brain is a meaning-making machine, always trying to make sense of the world.

You could say that racism is embedded in the top, "rational" part of your brain, whereas implicit bias involves the distorting "filters" created in lower parts of the brain.

Our first experiences create the filters through which all new experiences must pass.

thinking" part of the brain, the lower brain has already interpreted and responded to it. It's matched the sensory input from the new experience against the catalog of stored memories of past experiences—before the smart part of your brain even has a chance to get involved.

la inteligencia es el procesamiento más rápido de la información: una persona requiere un número menor de repeticiones de una misma experiencia para establecer una asociación.

to the top, "smart" part of our brain, we have to go through the lower, not-so-smart part. This sequential processing means that the most primitive, reactive part of our brain is the first part to interpret and act on the information coming in from our senses. Bottom line: Our brain is organized to act and feel before we think.

The possession of anything begins in the mind.

The most dangerous person is the one who listens, thinks and observes.