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3.2 What is cognition? 75

Cognition has also been described in terms of specific kinds of processes. These
include:
attention
perception and recognition
memory
learning
reading, speaking, and listening
problem solving, planning, reasoning, decision making

It is important to note that many of these cognitive processes are interdepen-
dent: several may be involved for a given activity. For example, when you try to
learn material for an exam, you need to attend to the material, perceive, and recog-
nize it, read it, think about it, and try to remember it. Thus, cognition typically in-
volves a range of processes. It is rare for one to occur in isolation. Below we
describe the various kinds in more detail, followed by a summary box highlighting
core design implications for each. Most relevant (and most thoroughly researched)
for interaction design is memory, which we describe in greatest detail.
Attention is the process of selecting things to concentrate on, at a point in time,
from the range of possibilities available. Attention involves our auditory andlor vi-
sual senses. An example of auditory attention is waiting in the dentist's waiting
room for our name to be called out to know when it is our time to go in. An exam-
ple of attention involving the visual senses is scanning the football results in a news-
paper to attend to information about how our team has done. Attention allows us
to focus on information that is relevant to what we are doing. The extent to which
this process is easy or difficult depends on (i) whether we have clear goals and (ii)
whether the information we need is salient in the environment:

(i) Our goals If we know exactly what we want to find out, we try to match this
with the information that is available. For example, if we have just landed at an air-
port after a long flight and want to find out who had won the World Cup, we might
scan the headlines at the newspaper stand, check the web, call a friend, or ask
someone in the street.
When we are not sure exactly what we are looking for we may browse through
information, allowing it to guide our attention to interesting or salient items. For
example, when we go to a restaurant we may have the general goal of eating a meal
but only a vague idea of what we want to eat. We peruse the menu to find things
that whet our appetite, letting our attention be drawn to the imaginative descrip-
tions of various dishes. After scanning through the possibilities and imagining what
each dish might be like (plus taking into account other factors, such as cost, who we
are with, what the specials are, what the waiter recommends, whether we want a
two- or three-course meal, and so on), we may then make a decision.
(ii) Information presentation The way information is displayed can also greatly in-
fluence how easy or difficult it is to attend to appropriate pieces of information.
Look at Figure 3.2 and try the activity. Here, the information-searching tasks are
very precise, requiring specific answers. The information density is identical in both