Quotes About Cognition

For me, the sense of awareness—the sense of presence, the feeling that I am an acting agent in the world—is the core of what it means to be conscious. It is easily explained by the activity of neurons, and I see no mystery in it.

We have learned a tremendous amount of knowledge and facts about the brain, but we have little understanding of how the whole thing works.

Truly random thoughts don't exist.

through the sensory nerves. The nerves only send spikes. And since we do not perceive spikes, everything we do perceive must be fabricated in the brain. Even the most basic feelings of light, sound, and touch are creations of the brain; they only exist in its model of the world.

we needed to understand what "understanding

understanding cannot be measured by external behavior

Discovering a useful reference frame is the most difficult part of learning, even though most of the time we are not consciously aware of it.

As Deborah had so astutely pointed out, I was engaged and still didn't get it.

This was not even a matter of putting two and two together; it was looking at four.

It is always nice to see the synapses clicking in a way that lets you know your opinion of yourself is sometimes justified.

Henry Loving stimulates the amnesia gene. But it's also true most people are simply extremely unobservant. Freddy

Confused?" "Not really. To be confused you have to be paying attention.

Jeffrey Young, Ph.D. Cognitive Therapy Center of New York 3 East 80th Street, Penthouse New York, New York 10021

This can't be true but I remember it.

That was when Leonard realized something crucial about depression. The smarter you were, the worse it was. The sharper your brain, the more it cut you up. As

Since the striosomes receive projections primarily from the emotional centers of the limbic system and the matrisomes receive projections from the higher cognitive centers of the prefrontal cortex, together they provide the perfect mechanism of integrating the messages of the heart with those of the mind.

The brain's gonna do what the brain's gonna do," I told them, "but you don't have to let it push you around.

We are not passive recipients but active participants in our own process of perception (Nancy Kanwisher)

Attending to one sense, such as vision, does not simply kick up the activity in the region of the brain in charge of that sense. It also reduces activity in regions responsible for other senses. If you are really concentrating on the little black lines and curves on this white page, you are less likely to feel someone brush against you, or to hear someone speaking in the background.

this kind of increased synaptic strength is a key to the formation of enduring neuronal circuits and has become known by the maxim "Cells that fire together, wire together.

Acquiring navigational skills causes a redistribution of gray matter in the hippocampus as a driver's mental map of London grows larger and more detailed with experience.

Intention governs attention, and attention exerts real, physical effects on the dynamics of the brain.

I like the idea of keeping my thoughts all in one place, like a brain you can look into.

Have you ever considered that there might be something wrong with your brain? Oh, I think there might be something wrong with everyone else's.