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cognitive state

cognitive state

6.5
The condition of a person's thinking, attention, and memory
  • noun
  • /ˈkɒɡnɪtɪv steɪt/
  • Specialized
translation icon : estado cognitivo
  • After a long day at work, she found herself in a distracted cognitive state, struggling to focus on her assignments.

Examples

  • Other researchers have investigated the effects of cognitive states on self-efficacy and performance.

    Academic text (1990)
  • In the case of cognitive state anxiety, the ARS consistently exhibits higher correlations with the CSAI-2 subscale for cognitive anxiety than does the MRF-L.

    Academic text (1999)
  • Instead, participants who exhibited higher levels of cognitive state anxiety also increased their mental effort.

    Academic text (2007)
  • Although they found that the mental preparation strategies produced significantly greater strength performance, these strategies produced no consistent changes in the cognitive states.

    Academic text (1990)
  • "All of the items began with the phrase "during the task," in an attempt to assess subjects' cognitive states during task performance.

    Academic text (1993)
  • Without such pre-guided direction, students may find themselves in such a confused cognitive state that the apt opportunity for reporting cheating bypasses them.

    Academic text (2007)
  • But newer research has started to shed light on the ways in which transient or fleeting cognitive states may impact one's likelihood of being unfaithful.

    Blog text (12)
  • The identification of moderate relationships between pre-competition cognitive anxiety and negative thoughts during performance in both studies indicates that the cognitive state of athletes is changeable.

    Academic text (2008)
  • Experiencing the situation as problematic or requiring inquiry is the initial step in inquiry, but it arises from a precognitive indeterminate situation that is not a subjective or mental state or a confused cognitive state.

    Academic text (2016)
  • The probe-question coding was based on Wellman and Bartsch's (1994) finding that children understood and talked about people's desires and intentions before they were able to understand people's cognitive states.

    Academic text (2012)

Synonyms

state of mind
vscognitive state
99 3.4

A person's mood or feeling at a particular time

concerns attention, memory, and perception rather than mood or feeling
mental state
vscognitive state
34 4.0

The way a person feels and thinks at a certain time

focuses on attention, memory, and perception rather than broad emotions
psychological state
vscognitive state
1 6.3

A person's thoughts and feelings at a certain time

focuses on attention, memory, and perception rather than emotions

How Alert

alertness
14 2.9
concentration
122 3.3
cognitive state
  • Specialized
6.5
drowsiness
6 1.8
coma
  • Specialized
259 5.4

Surface Forms

Morphology

cognitive + state

The meaning 'a particular condition of mental processes' is directly and compositionally derived from 'cognitive' (relating to mental processes) + 'state' (a condition or status). This adjective+noun combination follows a regular, cross-linguistically common pattern, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily infer the MWE meaning.

Etymology

Cognitive state comes from cognitive meaning 'about thinking or the mind' and state meaning 'condition'. Imagine the mind like the weather, clear or foggy, to picture someone's current mental condition, so cognitive state means 'the current condition of a person's thinking, memory, or attention'.