Cognitive Relativism

The weak version of Cognitive Realism. It proposes that our cognitive apparatus (senses, memory, language) doesn't lock us into one reality, but makes us relatively biased toward certain perceptions and interpretations. While our biology shapes and skews our view, there's still room for learning, different perspectives, and updating our mental models. It's the idea that we're wearing prescription lenses that distort, not blackout curtains that completely obscure.

Example: "Arguing about politics with my family showed Cognitive Relativism. We all watched the same debate, but our cognitive filters—shaped by different news sources, life experiences, and emotional triggers—highlighted different moments as 'key.' My reality of the event was relative to my cognitive setup, but by comparing notes, I could vaguely approximate what the 'neutral' feed might have been."

by Abzunammu February 2, 2026

Cognitive Determinism

The strong, hardcore version of Cognitive Realism. It asserts that our cognitive structures don't just influence but fundamentally determine and limit the boundaries of our possible experience. What we call "reality" is an inescapable projection of our neural wiring; we cannot perceive, conceive of, or even imagine anything outside the categories our brains provide. It's not that we see the world through a tinted window; it's that we are the window, and everything we see is a property of the glass.

Example: "Trying to imagine a truly new color is the prison of Cognitive Determinism. My brain's visual system is built from combinations of red, green, and blue photoreceptors. Every color I can experience or dream of is just a mix of those. A 'new' color outside that RGB triangle is cognitively impossible for me. My reality isn't just shaped by my senses; its entire color palette is predetermined by them."

by Abzunammu February 2, 2026

COGIATI

Short for the COmbined Gender Identity And Transsexuality Inventory, the COGIATI is a classic, old-internet quiz made by Jennifer Diane Reitz (a transgender woman) to help people determine if they are transgender, using 65 questions to classify respondents on a scale whose categories include "Definite Male", "Feminine Male", "Androgyne", "Probable Transsexual", and "Classic Transsexual".

It was made in the late 1990s and reeks of 90s sexism such as being bad at math and driving being feminine traits, and criticisms of it frequently point out it effectively is just an "are you a comically girly girl" quiz with no scientific merit, despite the alleged rooting of the questions in unidentified "recent research papers". Many transgender women who were struggling with their gender identity in the 2000s have stated the COGIATI made them seriously doubt their identity, being unable to envision themselves as girly girls and repressing (repping) their transness far longer than they would have otherwise. It also only acknowledges the existence of transgender women; enbies and transgender men are ignored by the test.

Though it is still available to take, it is by and large treated as a joke for its roots in gender essentialism and is typically used as shorthand on /lgbt/ (/tttt/) to imply someone is trying too hard to be trutrans or holds views reminiscent of the 1950s.

The spectre of the COGIATI haunts /lgbt/...

>gf who makes you take cogiati test before dating her to see if you're true trans or not

Susan’s Place forums are so weird, bunch of botched lateshits full of honscience posting on a board that’s a COGIATI spinoff project.

ITT: it is 2005 and we're doing the COGIATI to figure out if we're trans enough!

Imagine what it was like before there were social media trans communities and before there were places like /lgbt/ and /cd/. This and TSroadmap were about what there was, and the main online "do I really have dysphoria" resource was the fucking COGIATI. It was a goddamn mess, and you were kinda screwed if you couldn't worm your way into one of the smaller online cliques.

by Paul Allen's card February 3, 2026

Cognitive Metasciences

A broader, more theoretical category encompassing fields that take the entire project of cognitive science—the interdisciplinary study of mind and intelligence—as their object of critique and analysis. This includes questioning the computational metaphor of the mind, the limits of artificial intelligence as a model for human thought, and the cultural assumptions built into our models of intelligence. It's cognitive science reflecting on its own foundational metaphors.

Cognitive Metasciences Example: Critiquing the dominant paradigm in AI research for assuming that intelligence is purely information processing, while ignoring the role of embodied experience, emotion, and social interaction, is an exercise in Cognitive Metascience. It asks if the field is solving the right puzzle, or just the one that fits its preferred tools.

by Dumu The Void February 4, 2026

Cognitive Paradigm Theory

The study of the fundamental models that have dominated the science of the mind, each defining what the mind is and how it should be studied. Major paradigms include: the computational/representational (mind as software), connectionist (mind as neural networks), embodied/enactive (mind as an activity of the whole body in an environment), and ecological (mind as a perception-action system). Switching paradigms changes what you think thoughts are made of.

Example: The shift from seeing the mind as a symbol-manipulating computer (the classic AI paradigm) to seeing it as a predictive processing machine constantly generating and updating a model of the world is a Cognitive Paradigm Theory revolution. It changes the goal of psychology from programming rules to understanding Bayesian belief updating.

by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal February 4, 2026

Cognitive Metaparadigm Theory

A high-level theory about the nature of cognitive paradigms themselves. It classifies and analyzes the different possible kinds of models we can have for the mind—are they primarily computational, biological, phenomenological, or social? This meta-theory helps explain why cognitive scientists from different sub-fields often talk past each other; they're not just using different models, they're operating in different meta-frameworks about what a model of the mind should even look like.

Cognitive Metaparadigm Theory Example: The fierce debate between proponents of Classical Computationalism (the mind as a symbol processor) and Embodied Dynamical Systems (the mind as a body interacting with an environment) is a clash not just of paradigms, but of Cognitive Metaparadigms. One sees the mind as essentially like a computer program; the other sees it as essentially like a weather system or a walking gait.

by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal February 4, 2026

Cognitive Picking

The inherent, unconscious operation of the human brain to selectively attend to, remember, and process information that confirms existing beliefs, expectations, or emotional states (Confirmation Bias), while filtering out dissonant data. This is the biological and psychological root of all cherry-picking; our wetware is wired to be a prejudiced curator. We don't just pick facts; our perception itself is a picky editor.

Example: After buying a red Honda, you suddenly see red Hondas everywhere. This is Cognitive Picking. Your brain has tuned its perceptual filter to notice confirming instances (other red Hondas) while ignoring the thousands of other cars you pass. Your reality becomes a curated exhibit of your own recent choices.

by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal February 4, 2026