Mental processes
Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, intelligence, the formation of knowledge, memory and working memory, judgment and evaluation, reasoning and computation, problem solving and decision making, comprehension and production of language.
5 episodes
Episodes in this category also belong to the following categories:
Consciousness
Melvyn Bragg examines why the elusiveness and impenetrability of consciousness continues to fascinate both philosophers and scientists. Is the human mind just not built to understand its own basis?
25 November 1999
Featuring: Ted Honderich, Roger Penrose
Imagination
Melvyn Bragg discusses the creatives forces of the imagination, that companion of artists, scientists, leaders and visionaries.
28 November 2002
Featuring: Susan Stuart, Steven Mithen, Semir Zeki
Imagination and Consciousness
Melvyn Bragg investigates how neuroscience can help to explain the enigmas of consciousness and how we are able to imagine things when they are not there; ideas that have long troubled philosophers.
29 June 2000
Featuring: Gerald Edelman, Igor Aleksander, Margaret Boden
Memory
Melvyn Bragg discusses the significance of memory. Is it a repository of events waiting to be plucked to consciousness?
29 May 2003
Featuring: Martin Conway, Mike Kopelman, Kim Graham
Memory and Culture
Melvyn Bragg discusses how our ways of remembering have changed and explores whether memory itself can remain forever unchanged in its role within our psychology.
27 May 1999
Featuring: Malcolm Bowie, Nancy Wood