Simply put, cognition encapsulates all the brain processes involved in helping us perceive, receive, learn, store, use, generate, and communicate information and knowledge.
In neuropsychology, we break down what is essentially a massive and potentially nebulous construct and think about it in more concrete terms, so that we can begin to assess and measure this construct.
Therefore, neuropsychologists parcellate cognition into somewhat separate but nonetheless overlapping domains, with the major ones being attention, speed of information processing, visuospatial functions, praxis, memory, language, and executive functions.
I created the infographic below for a brain tumour charity event, but I have tweaked it such that it better suits our purpose here.
Hope it gives you a better sense of what we neuropsychologists mean when we talk about cognition / brain functioning / brain skills.
