TOEFL® Vocabulary Flashcard

Definition: The mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.

Example sentences:

• The findings from these experiments have been taken to demonstrate the role of cognition in the experience of emotion.

If it's related to thinking, it's considered cognitive. A child's cognitive development is the growth in his or her ability to think and solve problems. Used in a sentence, “Her cognitive style was much different from my son’s.” or, in other words, her thinking style was much different, or the way that they came to the same answer could have been very different. 

Cognitivity refers to the adjective form of the word and is the state of thinking.

Example sentences:

• As children grow older, their cognitive processes become sharper.
• Estrogen is said to enhance cognitive function.
• I had an aneurysm and my speech was not badly affected, but the singing has really helped to improve my cognitivity and get my confidence back.

If it's related to thinking, it's considered cognitive. A child's cognitive development is the growth in his or her ability to think and solve problems. Used in a sentence, “Her cognitive style was much different from my son’s.” or, in other words, her thinking style was much different, or the way that they came to the same answer could have been very different. 

Cognitivity refers to the adjective form of the word and is the state of thinking.

Example sentences:

• As children grow older, their cognitive processes become sharper.
• Estrogen is said to enhance cognitive function.
• I had an aneurysm and my speech was not badly affected, but the singing has really helped to improve my cognitivity and get my confidence back. 

The opposite of intrinsic is extrinsic. Extrinsic means not connected to the essential nature of something.  This means you are looking for outside advantages in order to complete or do something. It could also mean something that you have no control over. For example:

• The flight was canceled due to extrinsic circumstances.
• The show was canceled due to extrinsic conditions.​

Let’s take a look at the use of the word extrinsic meaning coming from the outside of something not connected to the essential nature of something:

• You have to consider any extrinsic factors in the success of the business.

Intrinsic means belonging to the essential nature of a thing. 

• The intrinsic brightness of a star. (Here intrinsic means occurring as a natural part of something.)

• Doing a job for only money is not intrinsic, and doing a job because you love it is intrinsic (This is because the motivation comes from within)

Let’s look at some more examples:

• If you like someone for intrinsic reasons, then you have no other motivation.

• He had intrinsic motivations for finishing school. (This means that he wasn’t finishing school so he could get a good job; he was finishing school because he enjoyed learning and wanted to prove to himself he could do it.)

The word intrinsic is often used with the preposition “to” as shown in the example below

• Creativity is intrinsic to human nature = Creativity belongs to the essential part of human nature. 

Definition: done without will or conscious control.

Example sentences:

• Dreams are nothing but the successions of images , ideas, emotions , and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep

Definition: Done without will or conscious control;(Especially of muscles or nerves) concerned in bodily processes that are not under the control of the will

Example sentences:

• The involuntary muscles are controlled by structures deep within the brain and the upper part of the spinal cord called the brain stem.

Definition: Relating to a nerve or the nervous system:

Example sentences:

• Measuring neural activity in language-sensitive brain regions of toddlers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may help identify those who go on to have poor language outcomes

Definition: Of or relating to psychology:Of, affecting, or arising in the mind; related to the mental and emotional state of a person:

Example sentences:

• The new research looked at psychological tests done 12 months after the first injection.

Definition: A thing or event that evokes a specific functional reaction in an organ or tissue

Example sentences:

• They are conditioned to respond to an auditory stimulus by, for example, dropping a block when a sound is heard through earphones. They had slower reaction times for visual and auditory stimuli, as well as subtle chorea, dystonia, and nystagmus

Definition: (Of a stimulus or mental process) below the threshold of sensation or consciousness; perceived by or affecting someone’s mind without their being aware of it.

Example sentences:

• An audio subliminal message could be defined as a verbal stimulus perceived below the threshold of awareness.

Definition: Not awake and aware of and responding to one’s environment

Example sentences:

• The boy was beaten unconscious.