Cognition
10 terms
Cognitive Load
The total mental effort being used in working memory at any given time—when cognitive load exceeds processing capacity, it leads to overwhelm, errors, and shutdown.
Context Switching
Context switching is the brutal cognitive price tag attached to every "quick question," every notification ping, every "this'll just take a second"—the hidden mental machinery required to save your entire cognitive state, dump it from working memory, load an entirely different program, run it, then somehow reconstruct where you were before the interruption shattered your flow. Like a computer forced to constantly swap between heavy programs on insufficient RAM, context switching transforms what could be smooth cognitive performance into a stuttering, exhausting cycle of mental stops and starts that leaves you wondering why you're so tired after a day of "just emails and meetings."
Decision Fatigue
Your brain running out of decision-making juice—every choice from breakfast cereal to career moves drains the same finite cognitive battery until you're standing in the grocery store unable to choose between two identical yogurts. Not laziness; executive function running on fumes.
Divergent Thinking
A cognitive process that generates creative, non-linear solutions by exploring multiple possibilities and making unexpected connections between ideas.
Pattern Recognition
The cognitive ability to identify patterns, connections, and regularities across various domains, often leading to insights, predictions, and innovative solutions.
Processing Speed
The pace at which the brain takes in, understands, and responds to information.
Sensory Gating
The brain’s ability to filter out unimportant sensory information; reduced gating can amplify overload.
Systems Thinking
The ability to understand how parts interconnect within complex wholes, seeing relationships, patterns, and feedback loops that create the bigger picture rather than focusing on isolated components.
Working Memory Deficit
Challenges holding and manipulating information over seconds/minutes to guide action.
Working Memory
The mental workspace that holds and manipulates information for short periods (seconds to minutes) to guide actions.