Cognition refers to the mental processes involved in thinking, perceiving, and reasoning. It is the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses. Cognition is essential for everyday functioning, and it encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes. Some key features of cognition include:

• Thinking: This is involved in all other forms of cognition and covers more complex mental processes like decision-making, problem-solving, and reasoning.

• Attention: This is the ability to focus on one particular thing. However, this focus can lead to something called cognitive bias, where the brain is so occupied with one thing that it misses other things in the environment.

• Language: This refers to the skills involved in all forms of communication, from understanding others to articulating thoughts.

• Learning: This is the process of receiving new information and combining it with existing knowledge. Once something is learned, it must be encoded and stored so that it can be accessed later – that process is memory.

• Perception: This is translating the information received from our senses into a multi-sensory view of our surroundings.

Cognition is not a unitary concept, and various cognitive functions or cognitive domains responsible for the regulation of specific behaviors or actions have been identified. These functions are often convoluted and operate synergistically, making it challenging to measure distinct cognitive processes. Cognition is constantly changing and adapting to new information, regulating our behavior across our lifespan and is underpinned by both genetic and environmental factors. Cognitive assessment refers to the objective measurement of distinct cognitive abilities, such as working memory, inhibition, cognitive flexibility, psychomotor speed, and sustained attention.