June 10

How does cognition develop over the lifespan?
Cognition begins as a baby in the womb. Babies can hear their mother's voice, music, and other sounds. This is when we first start to form patterns for recognition.

We have a sort of "tunnel vision" throughout our lives.  In "Now You See It," Cathy N. Davidson calls it "Attention Blindness." What this means is that we are trained to pay attention to certain things and to ignore (we are oblivious) to everything else unless our attention is drawn to it.

When we are babies, the adults in our lives choose what we should pay attention to.  They make sounds, shake things in front of our faces, etc. to gain our attention.  When we are young children, we continue to learn in much the same way.  Our brain will form patterns based on voice inflections, volume, smells, colors, etc..

We train our brain to pay attention to certain things. We can also un-train our brains to pay attention to new things and form new patterns.  When we are in school, our teachers choose what they want us to pay attention to; they provide us with our educational patterns.

What role does the environment play on cognition?
Our environment is what we use to form cognitive patterns (sights, sounds, smells, colors, volumes, etc).  Cathy N. Davidson suggests that we learn fear from the change in the tone of our mother's (or anyone else's) voice. We learn to like the music that we are first introduced to until we form a new pattern. Because we are observers when we are babies, our environment plays a huge role in our cognitive development.