Theory of Elastic Cognition

A framework proposing that cognition itself is elastic—that cognitive processes (perception, memory, reasoning) can stretch across contexts, tasks, and challenges without breaking. Elastic Cognition suggests that cognition isn't fixed but adaptive: attention stretches across tasks, memory stretches across time, reasoning stretches across domains. The theory identifies cognition's elastic limits: when does stretching become overload? When does adaptation become breakdown? Understanding cognition requires understanding its stretch. A meta-framework examining how conceptions of cognition stretch across history, discipline, and paradigm. The Elasticity of Cognitive studies how cognition has been defined—from behaviorism to cognitivism to embodied cognition—and how these definitions stretch under pressure from new research, new technologies. It asks: what are the limits of cognition's stretch? When does a new conception break rather than stretch? How does cognitive science recover from its own reductions? It's cognitive science reflecting on its own history and possibilities.

Theory of Elastic Cognition "Her attention stretched across three tasks—then snapped. Elastic Cognition says that's the limit: cognition can stretch, but only so far. The question isn't whether you can multitask; it's how much stretch your cognition can handle before breaking." "Cognition used to mean mental representation; now it means embodied, embedded, extended. Theory of the Elasticity of Cognitive says that's a stretch—a radical one. The question is whether the concept can stretch further—to include AI cognition, animal cognition, plant cognition—without losing coherence."

Theory of Elastic Cognition by Nammugal March 4, 2026