Creativity Among College Students In Relation To Their Intelligence

Abstract

Cognitive abilities is a set of abilities, skills or processes which is an almost integral part of human activity. Cognition deals with a person to understand and acts in the world. Cognitive abilities are the brain-based skills which are followed to perform any task from the simplest to the most complex (Singh &Narang, 2014). They are more concerned with the mechanisms of how we learn, remember, solving the problem, and pay attention rather than acquiring actual knowledge. Any task can be bifurcated into the different cognitive skills or functions which are needed to complete that task successfully. For instance, answering the telephone involves at least: perception (hearing the ring tone), decision taking (answering or not), motor skill (lifting the receiver), language skills (talking and understanding language), and social skills (interpreting tone of voice and interacting properly with another human being).

The fields of neuropsychology, cognitive psychology, and thus cognitive training are based on the framework that cognition consists of different mental functions or cognitive abilities which are based on specific constellations of brain structures. For instance memory skills rely mainly on parts of the temporal lobes (next to the temples) and parts of the frontal lobes (behind the forehead). (Bond, 1987).

Cognitive process refers to all the processes by which the sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered and used (Neisser, 1967). It represents a group of processes by which the organisms obtain knowledge of various objects of their environment and make use of this knowledge to achieve solutions to their problems. These processes range from the simple perceptualto the more complex thinking and reasoning processes. Recognition, labeling, analysis, categorization and planning are considered some of the basiccognitive processes. These are often viewed as intellectual and it is believed that through these processes people try to comprehend their environment and achieve solutions to a wide variety of problems and they encounter. Due to itswidespread usage, the study of cognitive processes have for a long time been fundamental to all researchers who have some concern with the acquisition, retention, retrieval and utilization of knowledge. For example, learning theorists have always shown concern with the formulation of general principalsof acquisition of knowledge and skills; developmental psychologists have tried to understand the growth of knowledge and skills as a function of the biologicalmaturation of human organisms, and their ever-increasing physical and socialworlds surrounding them: psychometricianshave attempted to develop tools and techniques for the measurement of the skills and abilities of individuals; and educationists have been concerned with the application of psychologicalknowledge about individuals for teaching a variety of skills in the mosteffective ways. The dimensions of development of cognitive processesrepresent a second issue of concern in research in this field. The qualitative andquantitative aspects of development have been particularly in focus. The contents of different individuals cognition do present evidence of qualitative differences, but quite often these qualitative aspects are quantified, and a general conclusion about an individual’s cognitive competence is drawn. Whilequalitative differences can be easily evaluated on a horizontal plane which characterized as “better”, whereas those placed on the lower pole are characterized as ‘poor’ in terms of the concerned cognitive processes. Thus, some individuals are considered as more able, competent and intelligent than others. (Kumari, 1991).