Cognitive Processing

Cognition consists of the mental processes that mediate between the detection of meaningful information and the response it generates. It includes a range of information-processing activities, including thinking, reasoning, and decision-making. One of the things that is usually left out of cognitive models of information processing is, however, a clear definition of what exactly is being processed. Analog processing involves looking for similarities and differences (i.e., analogies) between various information sets, while digital processing involves the manipulation of symbols according to predetermined rules. Vision and hearing process both digital and analog information, while taste, smell, touch, and kinesthesia depend on analog information. Symbols are discrete patterns of energy or matter that uniquely represent some other entity, convey the same information and meaning it does, and generate the same response. No one knows how the brain creates the symbols it uses to portray concrete objects or represent their properties and relationships.