Table of Contents
Introduction
Cognitive thinking refers to the application of the mental skills and activities to undertake various tasks, which include learning, reasoning and memorizing among others. The brain uses a set of cognitive skills in accomplishing multiple tasks of general life. This essay seeks to illuminate the processes of cognitive thinking, skills, importance, application and health problems associated with the cognitive sphere of the brain. This includes the manner in which the nervous, endocrine affects the functionality of the cognitive thinking.
Processes of cognitive thinking
The process that defines cognitive thinking includes the act of knowing, perception and making a judgment. In essence, cognitive thinking involves all the processes of consciousness, which include knowledge, recognition, reasoning, application, analyzing, understanding, creativity, and conception (Klahr, 2000). Consider the following diagram that shows how cognitive thinking thrives.
These processes enable human beings to carry out their duties in a healthy way. For instance, logic helps in reasoning, create ideas and solve problems. On the other hand, the processing speed enhances the performance of various tasks quickly and accurately. The indicators of a weak processing speed include taking a long time to complete tasks such as schoolwork among others. Weak skills should be addressed after cognitive testing because, with this abnormality in the cognitive thinking, then the efficiency of performance is reduced. Similarly, the cognitive process that involves in creativity help in coming up with new or unique ideas aimed at solving problems. Creativity is everywhere around us including different areas of study. The other skill of cognitive thinking that is equally important in solving problems is the divergent and convergent thinking. These two forms of reasoning are products of cognitive thought, where convergent thinking is essential in addressing more straightforward questions, whereas, convergent thinking is helpful in solving complex problems that need a lot of focus and concentration. In most cases, convergent thinking is applied to new issues, which have a multiple of possible answers (Klahr, 2000).
How does the nervous system affect the cognitive thinking function?
The human nervous system is composed of the central nervous system (CNS) and the peripheral nervous system (PNS).The brain and the spinal cord form the CNS, while the PNS connects all the other parts of the body to the spinal cord. In the case of how the nervous system affects the cognitive thinking, the motor and cognitive processes are functionally associated in the sense that some brain parts integrate with both the motor and cognitive functions, which give the innate ability of their functionality. It is attestable that the non-functionality of the nervous system primarily the brain affects the ability of cognitive thinking on various skills such as memory and even logic (Leisman, 2016).
How does the endocrine system affect the function?
The endocrine system interacts with the cognitive thinking function by the production of hormones, which causes a series of a chemical chain, which communicates the actions and processes of being performed. If the endocrine system is affected in one way or the other, the effect automatically influences the functionality of the cognitive thinking. It should be understood that cognitive thinking is propelled by neurotransmitters, which are chemicals or hormonal. In case of imbalances of these neurotransmitters, the process of neurotransmission is affected, and the effect leads to changes in thinking, memory, attention, and behavior. Most of these changes are associated with a syndrome called hormonal misconnection (Wirth, 2015).
How might stress affect the process or system?
According to various studies, a well-functioning memory and other cognitive processes gradually diminish when humans grow older. However, stress is the leading factor for slow or loss of consciousness in the modern world. Depressed persons are highly venerable of diminishing memory. In essence, stressful experiences contribute highly to the loss of cognition ability. On the other hand, the excitation attributed to stress makes complex and elusive thoughts more difficult because there is a lot of disturbance in the nervous system, which leads to the phenomena called freezing, where a person is not able to think or remember essential ideas (Scott et al. 2015).
- Scott, Stacey, Graham-Engeland, Jennifer, Engeland, Christopher, Smyth, Joshua, Almeida, David, Katz, Mindy, Lipton, Richard, … Sliwinski, Martin. (2015). The Effects of Stress on Cognitive Aging, Physiology and Emotion (ESCAPE) Project. (BioMed Central Ltd.) BioMed Central Ltd.
- Klahr, D. (2000). Exploring science: The cognition and development of discovery processes. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
- Wirth, M. M. (June 10, 2015). Hormones, Stress, and Cognition: The Effects of Glucocorticoids and Oxytocin on Memory. Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology, 1, 2, 177-201.
- Leisman, G., Moustafa, A. A., & Shafir, T. (January 01, 2016). Thinking, Walking, Talking: Integratory Motor and Cognitive Brain Function. Frontiers in Public Health, 4.