Final answer:
Cognition involves thinking, perception, problem solving, judgment, and memory, which are seamlessly integrated into our unconscious mental processes. Cognitive psychology explores how we organize and apply our cognitive function, especially high-level processes like abstract thinking and judgment, which play a crucial role in our daily lives and evolution.
Step-by-step explanation:
Cognition and Cognitive Processes
When you consider the seamless way our thoughts transition from one to the next, it's clear we are tapping into cognition, which embodies our abilities in perception, learning, problem solving, judgment, and memory. Cognitive psychology seeks to understand how we organize, integrate, and apply our cognitive experiences unconsciously. High-level cognitive processes take place when we engage in complex thinking, such as using abstract reasoning, making judgments, planning responses, and considering multiple perspectives.
Judgment plays a key role in our daily decision-making and abstract reasoning. For instance, judgment is at work in determining whether to snooze your alarm or get up immediately. Cognitive development during adolescence includes the progression to abstract thought and the ability to engage in sophisticated reasoning, questioning societal norms, and debating various viewpoints.
From an evolutionary biology perspective, inference-making is a natural part of our cognitive process, which helps us navigate survival and reproduction, though it may not always align with the pursuit of philosophical or scientific truth.
Overall, the brain's adaptability, schemata, and cognitive ease shape our thought processes and judgments, contributing to the uniqueness of our human experience.