Cognitive Function

(draft in process)

A cognitive function is a function that endows a person with the capacity to acquire knowledge about one's self and one's environment and to act on this knowledge. Cognition is comprised of other functions and processes including perception, learning, memory, reasoning, judging, planning, conceptualizing, comprehending, and language. The realization of this function is the ability to acquire and act on this knowledge. 

 need to define how a cognitive function differs from a mental function (mental = any function occurring in brain or mind  v. cognitive = a function capable of realizing coordinated and organized processes?)  

generic concept = any biological process that involves acquiring and acting on knowledge about one's environment (e.g., immune system, which learns to respond to antigens, etc.)

concept in context of human behavior = process that involves acquiring and acting on knowledge specifically within the context of the nervous system and mind 

 need to define how a cognitive process differs from a mental process  (often described as "lower" and "higher" level which is much easier to define in terms of neurological entities and processes than it is to define in terms of phenomenological experience or non-biological constructs defined in the behavior sciences)

cognitive functioning

cognition

1. all forms of knowing and awareness, such as perceiving, conceiving, remembering, reasoning, judging, imagining, and problem solving. Along with affect and conation, it is one of the three traditionally identified components of mind.

2. an individual percept, idea, memory, or the like. —cognitional adj. —cognitive adj.

cognitive development

• Identify the major concept(s) around which to organize a manageable project (scope of work) (artifact: mabh-crg concept plan)
• Complete the major concept table and iteratively update as project progresses (CRG to finalize the definition for SNOMED once all research has been completed) 

• Identify any non-standard use cases or pain points in research domain  (artifact: mabh-crg use case document)
• Identify any non-standard use cases or pain points in clinical domain  (artifact: mabh-crg use case document)

• Perform environmental scan to identify major theoretical models of construct/concept domain (artifact: mabh-crg theoretical model document)
• Perform environmental scan to identify disorders and clinical variables relevant to the concept domain  (artifact: mabh-crg clinical model document)
• Perform environmental scan to identify existing explicit representations of concepts in the domain in terminologies (nomenclatures, nosologies, classification systems, controlled vocabularies, and ontologies) (artifact: mabh-crg umls analysis matrix, mabh-crg terminology matrix)

• Perform and environmental scan to Identify key stakeholders in the basic research, clinical research, clinical practice, and patient advocacy domain (artifact: mabh-crg stakeholder document)
• Create and implement a plan for engaging stakeholders willing to participate in the CRG for the duration of the specific concept review, either on calls or via discussion forum, or to provide the following:
  • Stakeholder experience related to specific pain points or use cases in the domain
  • Copies or screenshots of note templates, clinical notes, flowsheets, order sets, research protocols, other 

• Review concepts in observable entity hierarchy
  • Create dot diagram of current state
  • Create observable entity spreadsheet
• Review concepts in clinical finding hierarchy
  • Create dot diagram of current state
  • Create observable entity spreadsheet

• Analyze concepts in observable entity hierarchy
  • Create observable entity spreadsheet
  • Create dot diagram of current state
  • Perform review of dot diagram to identify potential duplicate, outdated, missing or inaccurately modeled concepts
  • Update spreadsheet with changes including all defining relationships
• Analyze concepts in clinical finding hierarchy
  • Create observable entity spreadsheet
  • Create dot diagram of current state
  • Perform review of dot diagram to identify potential duplicate, outdated, missing or inaccurately modeled concepts
  • Update spreadsheet with additions or changes to concepts, including all defining relationships
• Identify missing concepts in other hierarchies (e.g., qualifier value, body structure) required to completely and accurately model observable entity and clinical finding concepts
• Create explicit, narrative definitions for all concepts

• Submit request for changes through CRS system or via template worksheet