Quotes About Cognition

Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes.

A very disturbing feature of overconfidence is that it often appears to be poorly associated with knowledge - that is, the more ignorant the individual, the more confident he or she might be.

In other words, if you were to build into the brain a component in charge of public relations, it would look something like the conscious self.

feelings are "true" if the judgments they encode are accurate

It is the study of how the human brain was designed—by natural selection—to mislead us, even enslave us.

Certainly the prefrontal cortex is an important thing; I'm as proud of mine as the next guy.

WRITER: But tell me before you go. What was the worst thing about being down here? AGNES: Just existing. Knowing my sight was blurred by my eyes, my hearing dulled by my ears, and my bright thought trapped in the grey maze of a brain. Have you seen a brain?

La percepción es un proceso activo que constantemente está construyendo modelos del mundo. Esa es una de las razones por las que cada persona ve cosas diferentes en los manchones abstractos de tinta utilizados en las pruebas de Rorschach: nuestra mente trata de convertir incluso los patrones más ambiguos en algo que tenga sentido. Nos gusta tener una historia sobre lo que son y lo que significan las cosas.

was beginning to observe the workings of what psychologists call the "default mode network." This is a network in the brain that, according to brain- scan studies, is active when we're doing nothing in particular—not talking to people, not focusing on our work or any other task, not playing a sport or reading a book or watching a movie. It is the network along which our mind wanders when it's wandering.

The only thing an intellectual can do is watch things blow up, from a safe distance, of course.

One operates on the mind with the mind. What else is there, after all?

The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.

the brain's business is not to give us an accurate or objective view of the world, but to give us a useful view - one we can act on

A manner of speaking becomes a manner of thinking.

Men deny animals have feelings and thoughts for one basic reason: so they won't feel guilty about what they do to them.

But refusing to think about a thing only brings it more strongly to mind.

In my opinion, men deny animals have feelings and thoughts for one basic reason: so they won't feel guilty about what they do to them.

People hear and see what they expect to hear and see.

If you can't remember something, did it really happen?

But I understand it better than I can speak it.

What the body knows and what the mind chooses to believe are two different things, after all.

A better reason why we, and other intelligent species, are born with such poorly developed brains is so that we can learn.

The mind is infinitely larger than the world it inhabits. There is more to the human brain than machinery or meat. I believe in the soul, I thought suddenly. Everything I know about the brain tells me not to, but I believe in it still.

Jonas was careful about language.