Quotes About Cognition

A fascinating quality of the human mind is its ability to hold firmly and simultaneously to contradictory ideas.

Pre-existing knowledge is what allows students to think.

He defined a presupposition as a belief that "consciously or unconsciously affects the way a person subsequently reasons.

The real battlefield is the realm of ideas.

True, both his eyes, in themselves, must simultaneously act; but is his brain so much more comprehensive, combining, and subtle than man's, that he can at the same moment of time attentively examine two distinct prospects, one on one side of him, and the other in an exactly opposite direction? If he can, then is it as marvellous a thing in him, as if a man were able simultaneously to go through the demonstrations of two distinct problems in Euclid.

The will not to believe. It is simple human nature. When the mind cannot grasp or face up to a horrible fact it turns away, as though refusing credence will conjure away the reality.

Kill?' I realized I could never properly explain that word to this creature toiling here in its garden. Had it ever eaten meat? Could it conjugate the verb 'hunt?

While my friends struggled and calculated, I reached a solution by a set of floating steps that were partly visual, partly just a feeling for what was right. It was hard to explain how I knew what I knew.

The human brain has 100 billion neurons, each neuron connected to 10 thousand other neurons. Sitting on your shoulders is the most complicated object in the known universe.

It's good to make your brain work more than your body.

You have two hemispheres in your brain - a left and a right side. The left side controls the right side of your body and right controls the left half. It's a fact. Therefore, left-handers are the only people in their right minds.

If you're going to train your body, it would be a really good thing to also train your brain.

The forms of my awareness are richer than yours.

I don't get ideas, I have them. The trick is to remember where I've put them.

Memory training is not just for the sake of performing party tricks; it's about nurturing something profoundly and essentially human.

One of the things that Teller and I are obsessed with, one of the reasons that we're in magic, is the difference between fantasy and reality. That is the subject that, if you have a brain in your head, is always dealt with in magic. The smarter the tricks you're doing, the more that' s an important thing.

The brain is the most complex, challenging scientific puzzle we have ever tried to decode.

Serial tasking is hard because switching tasks is hard, even when the tasks are easy and similar. In some experiments, bilingual speakers are asked to read out numbers, first in one language and then midway in another language. They often stumble at the switch, taking many tries before they hit their stride again.

The actual organization of behavior goes on the level of the individual nerve cells and their connections, and we have a hundred billion nerve cells, probably a hundred trillion connections. It's just mind-boggling to think of all the different ways in which they're arranged in a baby's head.

Words are not trivial. They matter because they raise consciousness.

I have to do something with my mind, or I'll get in trouble.

Donald Trump may have a long undiagnosed learning disability that for decades has interfered with his ability to process information.

I trust anybody's memory more than I trust mine.

The sad truth is that many behavioral economists know very little about psychology.