The 15 most important cognitive skills

Human beings are entities whose nervous system allows us to carry out a large number of mental processes, which in turn allow us to have a large number of cognitive skills that we use adaptively in order to adapt and survive.

Of this enormous amount of capabilities, some are more fundamental to us than others. Throughout this article we are going to refer to some of the most important cognitive skills.

• Related article: "The 11 executive functions of the human brain"

The most important cognitive skills

There are many cognitive skills that we have and that we constantly use to survive, mostly even unconsciously. Some of the fifteen most important are the following.

1. Attention

One of the most basic cognitive skills, attention allows us focus our cognitive resources in such a way that we can operate and work with them.

Within it attention we can include capacities such as holding it, dividing it, moving it away from previously perceived stimulation to save cognitive resources. Orientation responses to outgoing stimuli are also included, allowing us to activate and react to possible threats.

• You may be interested: "Selective attention: definition and theories"

2. Memory

Being able to encode, handle and retrieve information is essential in order to generate learning experiences that allow us to acquire a specific capacity or ability to operate mentally with information or even generate memories that will be part of our history.

Working memory (essential for any information processing), declarative (including episodic) and non-declarative memory are included, both in the short and long term.

• You may be interested: "Types of memory: how does the human brain store memories?"

3. Self-awareness

Curiously under-considered when we think of cognitive abilities, it is a fundamental capacity without which we could not have an identity.

It is about the fact of being able to recognize themselves, of considering themselves as their own being independent from the rest of the environment. It also allows us to be able to have and self-manage a personal history and to establish and make learning meaningful.

4. Reasoning

This ability has always been considered extremely important, to the point that formerly it was considered to be what separated us from the rest of the animals.

The ability to reason allows us to draw conclusions from the observation of reality and act accordingly. We can include inductive reasoning (moving from particular cases to general axioms), reasoning deductive (deduce from the general how the behavior of particular cases will be) and the hypothetical-deductive.

5. Motivation and goal setting

Motivation allows the human being to acquire and feel the energy and drive necessary to initiate and maintain a certain course of action, allowing us to set and actively pursue our goals and objectives. The total absence of motivation could even prevent us from looking for food or water to survive.

6. Association capacity

Being able to establish relationships between different events is a fundamental ability not only for humans but for any type of living being with the ability to learn. In fact, it is the basis of any type of learning.

7. Cognitive flexibility

If we always kept our perspective and vision of things we would not be able to learn not to face something contrary to our way of understanding reality. Being flexible allows us to be able to adapt to new conditions and modify our schemes depending on what experience dictates.

It also allows us to be able to assume different perspectives and understand the motivations and thoughts of others, being of great help for socialization.

8. Problem resolution

Deeply linked to the previous one, the ability to use the knowledge acquired, organize it and link it to the search for a solution to the problems that we find ourselves.

9. Creativity and lateral thinking

Generating new strategies beyond the information and methods that we have had so far has allowed the human being to evolve, for example, helping to generate new technologies, techniques and procedures that allow us to achieve our objectives or solve a problem in the most efficient way.

10. Perception

The ability to perceive is something that we usually take for granted, but the truth is that we can consider it one of the essential cognitive skills. It's about the ability to transform signals from the senses into information with which our brain is able to work to perceive in a coordinated way, for example, the different information that constitutes an image or what a person is telling us

11. Behavior inhibition and management

It is just as important to do something as to be able not to do it, or to inhibit our already initiated behavior patterns to deal with new information or change of strategies in case they are not being effective. It allows us to save time and effort, when not directly avoiding dangers and being able to adapt to the environment

12. Anticipation and planning

The past is important, but it is the ability to plan and anticipate results that allows us to start establishing plans and the appropriate actions to achieve our objectives. It also allows us assess risks and benefits, as well as the possible consequences of our actions.

13. Symbolization and interpretation

Something fundamental for the human being is the ability to generate elements that allow representing an idea, as well as the ability to assess what a specific action or symbol implies. This allows us, for example communicate with our peers and socialize, something peremptory for a gregarious species like ours.

14. Language

Although more than a cognitive ability could be considered an activity or product of this, it It is true that language is a fundamental capacity when it comes to relating and transmitting information. We are not talking only about speech but also of literacy, gestures or expressions.

15. Metacognition

A highly relevant cognitive skill is being able to assess and think about one's own cognition. Metacognition allows us to take into account our capacities and knowledge, analyze for example the type of information that we lack to understand a situation or optimize and improve our capabilities.

Bibliographic references:

• Lycan, W.G., (ed.). (1999). Mind and Cognition: An Anthology, 2nd Edition. Malden, Mass: Blackwell Publishers.
• Stanovich, Keith (2009). What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.
• Von Eckardt, Barbara (1996). What is cognitive science?. Massachusetts: MIT Press.