It’s probably a good idea for Joe Biden to take a cognitive test to make sure he won’t absent-mindedly push the nuclear bomb button. But there are assorted and ample reasons why most of the rest of us should take a test, too. The 81-year-old president might have trouble mixing up names and forgetting exact dates but he’s not the one who forgot what’s written in the U.S. Constitution or why violently storming the U.S. Capitol is not typical tourist behavior.
It isn’t Biden who thinks it’s OK to keep burning fossil fuels at record levels or that banning books is actually a good educational policy. Biden might have some very old-fashioned ideas about democracy, but it is his opponent who suffers a lack of memory about our nation’s history.
Biden’s age is definitely showing. His walk is very stiff and his speech can be slow and halting. But leading neurologists have recently warned that a loss of memory is not the same as a loss of overall reasoning power or keen decision-making. Go figure.
Age stalks all of us and it creaks into our bones and muscles and brains. But age does not explain why a majority of young Gen Xers and Millennials can’t solve their own daily problems without a smartphone assist from Siri or Google Assistant. These young people have a definite and unique cognitive problem. We know, because we trained them for it.
There’s a lot of Baby Boomers who are a decade or so younger than Biden who’s spouses wish they’d take a test or learn some mental exercises so they’d stop losing their car keys or forgetting what month it is.
Who should take a test?
It’s in vogue right now for the press and others to call for Biden, Trump, a few Supreme Court justices and others to take a cognitive test. And with that comes a lot of misunderstanding about what a cognitive test can and cannot measure.
We can think of lots of people who should be tested.
What about the guy who invented those impossible-to-open plastic prescription bottles? What was he thinking? And, who thought those self-checkout kiosks in stores was “progress?” Whoever thought of that should be made to scan a whole basket of items with those miniscule barcodes and then do it in reverse order to see if he gets the same total. (He won’t.)
Don’t look now, but we think we are being secretly subjected to cognitive tests every day. How else can you explain why we have to point and click on all those letters and numbers on our TV screen to watch our favorite streaming show? Nobody clicks all the right letters or squares the first time, do they?
If we wanted to be transparent about giving everyone a cognitive test, we could do it at airports where everybody has to go through those TSA security lines. Administering little mental tests might make the time pass by faster. (Anybody not wanting to take the test could buy a TSA PreCheck, just like they do now, OK?)
While we’re at it, why not require a cognitive test for all voters at the voting booth? We require a big test to drive a car and get a license. Why not require one to “drive” a country?
Do we have cognition?
Lots of people seem very unclear on what “cognitive thinking” actually is. And, like almost everything else, the concept and practice of cognitive thinking has grown more and more complicated through human history.
Before machines, electronics and digital communication, cognitive thinking was a very singular act performed by individual brains. The great philosopher Rene Descartes (1596-1650) said: “Cogito, ergo sum.” The familiar translation goes, “I think, therefore I am.”
Now it’s not that simple. With mass communication and computer-assisted learning like Artificial Intelligence, it is difficult to tell where one brain or cognitive thought begins and another leaves off.
Cognitive thought, or cognition, is the brain-centered process of acquiring knowledge, memory, perception and even our emotions. Cognitive thought is always building new knowledge based on previously acquired knowledge. That’s why most older people know lots more than younger people. Older people have the biggest vocabularies and have a grasp on the deeper or alternative meaning of words and ideas. This is true until some old folks’ brains begin to lose some neurological functions, decrease in blood flow and when some brains actually begin to shrink.
Cognitive thinking is the unique biological function that separates humans from other living things, including almost all other mammals. Cognitive thinking facilitates our “abstract world” of language, symbols and the ability to time travel strapped to our memories. It is the engine that drives our critical thinking, computational skills, problem-solving and multi-tasking.
When you think of cognitive thinking, think of it as being “software for the brain.”
Ready for your test?
Cognitive tests don’t measure the size or raw horsepower of the brain but they can uncover evidence of a recent trauma, impacts from drugs or a chronic disease or oncoming dementia or Alzheimer’s. The most popular cognitive test is the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA.) This test involves memorizing a short list of words, naming objects shown in pictures, copying shapes and performing other tasks. This test takes about 15 minutes to complete. It is not a pass-fail test. Neurologists and other medical professionals use the MoCA test as part of a series of examinations and observations of a patient or individual.
If you want, you can give yourself a cognitive test. The easiest might be the Mini-Cog test. This test involves memorizing and recalling a three-word list of unrelated words and drawing a circle clock — adding all time points, then drawing hands to show a specific time. This test is the shortest (under three minutes) and easiest to complete.
Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980) may be the most influential scholar in history about cognitive thinking and related theories. There is a Jean Piaget Society that still holds annual conferences dedicated to his original theories of cognitive development.
Most of Piaget’s early work was studying the growth and development of babies, young infants and children, including his own three children. Piaget founded the four stages of cognitive thinking development beginning with newborn babies that only have simple reflexes. In the second stage, after a few months, babies acquire habits they can repeat like sucking their thumbs.
By the time Piaget’s babies approach eight months they begin to identify objects and become aware of things beyond their own bodies.
The first evidence of what most would call abstract or advanced cognitive thinking happens at about 12 months when infants discover the “permanence” of objects. In a set of famous experiments, Piaget tested this development by placing an object in front of an infant then covering it with a blanket. An infant’s “knowledge” that the object still existed and could be fetched marked the beginning of a thinking process that quickly led to acquiring language and identifying symbols over the next 12 months.
Piaget’s studies and writings were very influential in early childhood education and programs. He favored “learner-focused” programs and classroom settings that promoted high degrees of interaction. Piaget’s educational philosophy opposed programs that sought to “create little adults” or seek “perfect outcomes.” It sounds like Piaget would not be someone to pull a quick trigger on a cognitive test.
Piaget’s influence continues to today. His studies in epistemology (theory of knowledge) were used at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center during the earliest computer science days in the 1970s. Scientists there wrote computer-programming language based on Piaget’s work. From there his work was adapted for early uses of computer graphical user interfaces (GUI) and basic elements of Artificial Intelligence language models.
Cognitive versus digital thought
Lots of people remain very concerned about President Joe Biden’s mental abilities and his overall health. It is obvious that he is not one of the “Super Agers” that show amazing vitality and expanding capacities to create new masterpieces of art, music or philosophy. (Mel Brooks, Bertrand Russell, Norman Lear and Rita Moreno come to mind.)
But aside from aging politicians like Biden, Trump and U.S. senators Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer, our current times may be vexed with much more complex and consequential problems related to cognitive thinking.
Our cognitive thinking problem isn’t about getting old; it’s about staying stupid.
This brings us back to all those Gen Xers and Millennials who can’t think for themselves without a computer assist. What will we be faced with when a whole generation loses all cognitive thinking abilities as soon as the electricity goes off or the Internet implodes?
We are in the midst of times where digital thought is now a seamless integration of technology into our cognitive processes. These include our everyday devices we carry to the cutting-edge neural implants that promise to revolutionize the way we think. Our smartphones have become extensions of our minds, constantly shaping our perceptions and decisions.
We now have Artificial Intelligence programs that act as a cognitive thinking-assist tool, set to replace our problem-solving capabilities with future-bending levels of interaction and collaboration between humans and machines.
And we think Biden has a problem?
— Rollie Atkinson
7-16-2024
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And, as such, reasoned thought is dead, or at least, dying. We’re in the age where “thoughts” are acquired off of one’s favorite platform, like food from a drive through window, ready to consume and share. Why? No reason.
Very good article Rollie.