Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of, characterized by, involving, or relating to cognition.
  • adjective Having a basis in or reducible to empirical factual knowledge.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In grammar, a particular form of a root word, expressing recognition or knowledge.
  • Capable of cognition; learning; knowing.
  • Pertaining to cognition: as, the cognitive faculties.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Knowing, or apprehending by the understanding.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective The part of mental functions that deals with logic, as opposed to affective which deals with emotions.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective of or being or relating to or involving cognition

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin cognitus, perfect passive participle of cognosco ("I know") + adjective suffix -ivus.

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Examples

  • British cognitive psychologist Ros Crawley ­comments: "The idea that women become forgetful and absentminded during pregnancy has become a stereotype in our society, but my own studies have found very little difference in ­­cognitive ­function between women who are or are not ­pregnant."

    The Guardian World News 2010

  • British cognitive psychologist Ros Crawley ­comments: "The idea that women become forgetful and absentminded during pregnancy has become a stereotype in our society, but my own studies have found very little difference in ­­cognitive ­function between women who are or are not ­pregnant."

    The Guardian World News 2010

  • Though Freud's waning prestige has weakened tendencies to assume that he had somehow demonstrated the reality of unconscious intentionality, the rise of cognitive science has created a new climate of educated opinion that also takes elaborate non-conscious mental machinations for granted ” the ˜cognitive unconscious.™

    Consciousness and Intentionality Siewert, Charles 2006

  • The term "cognitive dissonance" was first applied to this stance - in which bare fact cannot undermine strong contrary belief.

    Thestar.com - Home Page Tristan Sturm 2011

  • It was he who, back in the 1970s, coined the term "cognitive neuroscience"—with colleague George Miller—in the back seat of a New York taxi.

    Rethinking Thinking Raymond Tallis 2011

  • The term cognitive dysfunction covers the entire range of mental faculties from memory to abstract thinking and judgment.

    Dr. Peter Breggin: Disturbing News for Patients and Shock Doctors Alike 2008

  • Dude, should the term cognitive dissonance mean anything to us?

    Is This Heaven? 2007

  • This is where the term cognitive dissonance has the possibity to fall flat on its face - at least when the concept is misused deliberately or accidentally as is the case when trying to apply cognitive dissonance to the subject of Man-made global warming.

    marklynas.org - home 2010

  • �He says these findings fit with what researchers have theorized for a while now - mentally engaged people build up what he calls a cognitive reserve that may help them compensate when the initial damage of Alzheimer's - including a buildup of plaques and tangles in the brain - start to develop.

    Mental Stimulation Postpones, Then Speeds Dementia 2010

  • �He says these findings fit with what researchers have theorized for a while now - mentally engaged people build up what he calls a cognitive reserve that may help them compensate when the initial damage of Alzheimer's - including a buildup of plaques and tangles in the brain - start to develop.

    Mental Stimulation Postpones, Then Speeds Dementia 2010

  • Those whose brains remain nimble and active seem better able to tolerate the deterioration of dementia without any obvious loss of faculties, a concept known as “cognitive reserve”.

    What is behind the unexpected decline in dementia? 2023

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