Cognition
Information enters a person's awareness through a multi-stage process.
Raw sensory data becomes organized perception. Perception becomes focused attention. Attention becomes decoded meaning. Decoded meaning gets internalized, comprehended, and evaluated.
This process happens continuously and largely unconsciously. Most of it operates below the level of deliberate control.
Sense
The senses are always active: seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling.
- Word pointers:
- Detect, Register, Receive, Input
A person cannot turn off their senses. The raw data flows in constantly, whether attention is directed at it or not.
This phase captures everything. No filtering has occurred yet.
Perception
Raw sensory data gets organized into recognizable patterns.
- Word pointers:
- Organize, Structure, Pattern, Recognize, Interpret
This is where Nature and Nurture begin to shape what a person experiences. Worldview, past experience, and cultural frameworks determine what patterns emerge from the raw data.
Two people sensing the same raw input may perceive different things. Perception is not neutral — it is shaped by everything that came before.
Perception organizes the sensory flood into something a person can work with. But not all perceived patterns receive further processing.
Attention
From everything perceived, attention selects what enters the system for processing.
- Word pointers:
- Select, Focus, Concentrate, Notice, Prioritize
This is the gateway. A signal can be perceived without being attended to. But for a signal to be processed — to be decoded, comprehended, and evaluated — it must pass through attention.
This connects to the Communication map: for communication to occur, the receiver must be paying attention. A message can arrive and be perceived, but if attention is elsewhere, the message does not enter the system.
Attention is selective. What gets selected depends on both the salience of the signal and the priorities of the person attending.
Decode
Once a signal has attention, it must be decoded.
- Word pointers:
- Translate, Extract, Interpret, Parse
For communication, this means reversing the encoding the sender applied — taking the external message and extracting its intended meaning.
For non-communication signals — observing a tree, noticing a change in temperature, hearing a sound — decoding means extracting meaning from the pattern. What does this signal indicate about the world?
Decode transforms attended signals into meaningful information.
Processing
Once decoded, meaningful information must be processed. This happens in three stages contained within the Processing system.
Internalization
The decoded signal gets translated into a person's internal framework.
- Word pointers:
- Encode, Translate, Assimilate, Incorporate, Adapt, Personalize
This is sometimes called "re-encoding" or "assimilation." The external meaning gets fitted into the person's existing mental models and understanding.
Different people internalize the same decoded information differently, depending on their frameworks and prior knowledge.
Comprehend
The person verifies that they understand what they have internalized.
- Word pointers:
- Understand, Grasp, Absorb, Integrate
If comprehension is uncertain, this is where the feedback loops from the Communication map activate. Clarification gets sought. Questions get asked. The person interacts with their environment to confirm what they are actually perceiving.
Comprehension is the checkpoint: "Do I understand what this signal means?"
Evaluate
Finally, the comprehended information gets evaluated for significance and action.
- Word pointers:
- Assess, Consider, Judge, Determine, Weigh
This is where the person determines: What does this mean for me? What should I do about it?
This phase connects to the Processing map, which shows how information gets routed to different outcomes: ignored, stored in memory, integrated into worldview, or flagged for action.
Broader Context
The Cognition map shows how information gets into a person's system and what happens to it once there.
This map connects to:
- Taking Action: Cognition is the detailed view of the "Observe" phase
- Communication: Attention is required for messages to be received
- Nature and Nurture: Worldview shapes Perception
- Processing: Evaluation hands off to the decision tree for what to do with information
The quality of action depends on the quality of cognition. What gets attended to, how it gets decoded, and how it gets evaluated shapes everything that follows.