======================================================================

The Development of Cognitive Organization

As we grow and learn more about our surroundings, we find familiarity in situations, faces, and experiences. It is a vital part of our understanding of how the world works – the laws of physics are, in most cases, understood at a fundamental level – we know, for example, we cannot fit inside a shoe-box. When we are young, we figure this out for ourselves and it becomes part of our cognitive process.

Cognitive organization, the process of arranging objects, events, people, language or even ideas, into a structure that we can understand, begins at a very early age. Preschoolers, for example, will automatically group objects of play together – plastic fork and spoon, or toy tractor and toy truck. They will generally have a very organized behavioral routine around everyday routines (meal times, bed times, etc.).

As many of our executive functions and automatic responses are housed in the prefrontal lobes, prefrontal injury or impairment can negatively influence the control that we have over our cognitive processes. In other words, an imperfect prefrontal cortex impairs the way we ‘think.’. It can mean that the ability to “think our way around problems” becomes difficult. We cannot focus on the correct organizational scheme to complete a task.

Our cognitive processes increase in complexity as we mature. We start to associate more concrete physical objects with more conceptual ones. A very young child might put ‘Grandma’ and ‘cake’ together, because he or she understands that Grandma bakes cakes. As the child gets older, he or she may associate the word ‘cake’ with ‘chocolate’, a move that symbolizes the transfer between physical and conceptual ideas.

The image of self is usually still underdeveloped by the age of 2. The image of self comes from understanding the world around us and the relationships we have with the people in it. A good example of this is that a 2-year old will often narrate single events that happened to him by referring to himself as an object, usually in the form of ‘me’: “me fall”.

As we grow older, and the cognitive responses start to draw on more experiences and memories, we learn to adapt ourselves to our surroundings in a more self-aware way. By the ages of 3 to 4, we can narrate more events and will begin to address ourselves as “I”.

By the age of 5 we can generally line up events that have happened to us in the correct sequence, as our neural pathways adapt to the sequence of time. By 7 years of age we are generally able to narrate a basic story, with a distinct beginning, middle and end. Our topographic memory has begun to develop which is the ability to orient ourselves in the space that we occupy, and to follow and recognize a distinct itinerary.

This development is then carried into adolescence at which point we have enough information about the world around us for our cognitive processes and memory to be in sync. We can then apply our experiences and understanding of “the way things work” to our role in life. If, however, there is impairment somewhere in the development of the prefrontal cortex, this natural progression is hindered.

Cognitive Organization in our Daily Lives

In most people with normal prefrontal lobes, responses are produced more or less automatically – like getting up in the morning and feeling hungry. We would like some breakfast, so we go to the kitchen and prepare a breakfast. It requires little thought – our cognitive process is such that we know that hunger means the need for food, and we know that there is food in the kitchen. We know it must be prepared, and we know it must be eaten. However, if there is impairment in the prefrontal lobe, even this can be a difficult task.

The 'problem' in this case is our hunger. The solution that presents itself is to eat. Our memory tells us that there is food in the kitchen, as there was yesterday. If just one of these automatic cognitive processes is impaired in any way, we can have issues solving this relatively easy task.

Say, for example, you cannot identify the problem. You feel hungry – you have previous experience of being hungry, and your brain tells you what to do about it. But if you do not associate this hunger with eating, then the problem remains unsolved. If it is memory that is impaired, you have identified the problem as being hungry, and you have identified the solution as finding something to eat, but you have no memory of where the food is or how to get it.

The Relationship between Organization and Memory

The relationship between our cognitive organization and memory is a complex one, but it breaks down into three components:

This automatic organization, in normal developing persons, serves to help us start on the learning process. We are then able to take skills learned from experiences and apply them to novel yet similar situations. From the relationship with our parents, we determine the role of adults in our lives and we then apply our experiences to other situations or experiences. For example, as we know that we can’t fit inside a shoe box, we can apply that fact to reason that the family car does not fit in the fridge.

Although this might seem like a rather fatuous example, for many children with an impairment in their prefrontal cortical development, it is not. Imagine if it were not obvious to you that you could not fit inside a shoe box. Imagine if you could not make the connection between rewards for good behavior and admonishments for bad behavior?

References:

Bartlett, F.C. (1958). Thinking: An experimental and social study. London: Allen & Unwin.

Pellegrino, J.W. and A.L. Ingram. (1979). “Processes, Products and Measures of Memory Organization.” Pp. 21—49 in Memory Organization and Structure, edited by C. Richard Puff. New York: Academic Press.

Ylvisaker, M. (Ed.) (1998). Traumatic brain injury rehabilitation: Children and adolescents (Revised Edition). Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann (Mosby).