What is cognitive science? It is a discipline that studies how the brain operates. It studies the human brain and how it learns, remembers, comprehends, creates meaning, reason, and utilizes imagination. It explores the relationships between brain and environment, how they influence each other, how they organize and navigate the world, how they organize behavior, how they can make you laugh or cry, how they can drive you to insanity or help you recover from depression. The interdisciplinary approach allows researchers to examine many related areas simultaneously. It is an exciting and potentially influential area of research.

What is cognitive science? Cognitive psychologists draw on a number of different areas in psychology and other science to understand human behavior and its underlying principles. Cognitive psychologists include those who specialize in educational psychology, developmental psychology, social science, counseling, and organizational development. Their work often brings cultural diversity and socio-economic status into their explanations, as well as practical issues such as understanding why people make certain decisions or behave in certain ways.

What is cognitive science? Cognitive scientists use a variety of methods to study cognition and all the various processes that go on in our brains. The methods they use may be computer science, cognitive neuroscience, decision theory, social learning, or methods based on ethology, anthropology, neurology, information science, psychology, sociology, neuropsychology, psychology, statistics, cognitive architecture, digital signal processing, knowledge representation, visual psychology, linguistics, engineering science, decision theory, and programs for modeling social and psychological reality. There is also a subfield called “cognition science” which studies methods and models for cognitive ability, including reasoning, problem solving, mental representation, problem assessment, visual acuity, mental planning, linguistic logic, and memory.

The advances made in this field are vast, with nearly every area of science being touched in some way by cognitive science, cognitive psychology, or brain sciences. Areas of psychology and psychiatry greatly benefit from the research done in this broad field. Researchers have shown remarkable progress in learning, memory, attention, language, mood, reasoning, self-control, thinking, planning, spatial perception, motor skills, and personality. This research has provided solid foundations for understanding human behavior and also for helpful treatments for mental disorders.

What is cognitive science used for? Today, there are many different applications for this exciting science, ranging from understanding the causes of autism to developing computer games that teach different types of skills. In education, it has been applied to helping students learn math, reading, writing, and performing scientific calculations. In business and marketing, it can be applied to analyzing customer behavior and fashioning marketing strategies.

The diversity of what is cognitive science demonstrates that this field continues to grow. While many psychologists focus their attention on a specific area of psychology, such as understanding the basis of anxiety disorders, cognitive scientists are currently examining many different areas at once. If you are a psychologist who is interested in exploring what is cognitive science, or if you are someone trying to get a job in this field, you might be interested in learning a little more about this broad area.