Cognitive abilities: Definition and their role in the workplace

Cognitive ability refers to how an individual processes information, solves problems, learns new skills, and thinks critically. In short, it’s not what a person thinks but how they think. 

Understanding and identifying employees’ cognitive skills is crucial to maintaining a positive workplace culture, developing employees’ role-specific skills and abilities, and achieving organizational goals. 

On the other hand, hiring candidates who lack specific cognitive skills can stick you with the financial and personal costs of mis-hires – like low team morale, damaged client relationships, and poor team dynamics. Luckily, skill-based hiring tools – like multi-measure assessments – can help you identify and evaluate candidates’ cognitive abilities to make the right hire. 

Below, we explore what cognitive abilities are, the different types, their importance in the workplace, and how to test candidates’ cognitive abilities. 

What are cognitive abilities?

Cognitive abilities (sometimes collectively called cognitive intelligence or cognitive thinking) are the cognitive skills and processes that shape how we perceive the world and enable us to understand, remember, and apply information. These abilities include mental functions like recognizing patterns, analyzing problems, maintaining concentration, and recalling information. 

In the workplace, high-performing employees have strong cognitive abilities that allow them to learn new skills, remember valuable information, focus on tasks, and find solutions to problems. 

Different types of cognitive abilities 

There are four main types of cognitive abilities that an individual can have: attention, memory, logic and reasoning, and auditory and visual processing. 

Some job candidates may have strengths in a specific category and weaknesses in another. That’s why it’s important to understand what each ability involves and how it can impact employee performance. 

Attention 

Attention is the cognitive ability to stay focused on a particular task. It refers to an individual's selective concentration on a project, decision, or problem. It also refers to one’s ability to focus on multiple tasks simultaneously without being distracted by external stimuli. 

Attention requires discipline, focus, and awareness for sustained periods. It’s a valuable cognitive ability for employees because it allows them to set and achieve individual and team goals. 

Memory

Memory is the process of identifying, storing, and retaining information. It’s also the cognitive ability to recall information clearly and accurately. 

Employees with strong memories can quickly reference dates, numbers, and previously learned facts. In addition, they can remember how to accomplish specific tasks and navigate situations to inform their decision-making. 

Logic and reasoning 

Logic and reasoning are a person’s ability to think through problems and use strategies to solve them. They involve using a given set of facts to deduce other facts through analysis, common sense, and making connections. This cognitive ability is vital for decision-making because it considers relevant data to inform a course of action. 

Cognitive skills like problem-solving and critical thinking directly result from one’s logic and reasoning ability. They’re also crucial for employees’ success in roles that involve complex tasks or projects with lots of moving parts. 

Auditory and visual processing

Auditory and visual processing is an individual’s ability to interpret information through sight and sound. In other words, it's the ability to make sense of what we see and hear. 

An employee’s visual processing ability influences how well they can interpret images, words, and symbols – like charts and infographics, for example. 

Their auditory processing ability helps them absorb and interpret information sonically, like through active listening or deciphering subtle differences in vocal tone. 

Why are cognitive skills important in the workplace? 

Cognitive skills are the key to an employee’s performance. Why? Because how an employee thinks and approaches problems determines whether they’ll succeed in a particular role. For example, a cybersecurity engineer without strong logic and reasoning skills may fail to address complex problems, like fixing firewalls or investigating incidents. 

Overall, cognitive skills are important in the workplace because they help employees learn the responsibilities of their roles, find solutions to problems, and make important decisions. Let’s break these down.

Understand roles and responsibilities

Absorbing job-related information like deadlines, objectives, and how to complete tasks allows a business to function properly by keeping every employee on the same page. 

Employees with solid attention and memory skills can quickly learn and deploy role-specific skills. They can also use logic and reasoning to identify and fill individual and organizational skills gaps. 

Analyze and solve complex problems

Applying cognitive reasoning allows employees to assess a situation rationally and decide on a course of action. 

Without strong logic and reasoning skills, employees can’t effectively solve problems, verify claims, or manage uncertainty in the workplace. Without cognitive abilities like auditory and visual processing or attention, workers may not even recognize issues in the first place. 

Strengthening cognitive skills enables employees to predict, avoid, and tackle problems to keep operations running smoothly. 

Make important decisions

Cognitive skills enable employees to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of a particular decision. In other words, employees can't make effective choices if they don’t build their cognitive skills, like deductive reasoning and attention.

In addition, workers with busy schedules, multiple projects, and conflicting responsibilities can feel overwhelmed in the workplace. However, cognitive skills like attention can enable them to multitask and prioritize essential responsibilities without causing employee burnout. 

Communicate effectively 

Workplace communication is the foundation of a robust organizational culture. Without the ability to communicate needs, questions, and goals, employees can feel isolated or unsupported. 

Knowing how and when to communicate is an important cognitive skill that relies on a combination of auditory and visual processing, logic and reasoning, and attention. 

Generate new ideas

Cognitive skills are the main drivers of innovation. They give employees the mental tools to produce, tweak, and share new ideas. 

Outside-the-box thinking is crucial to individual and organizational growth because it helps employees solve and avoid problems, and improve existing processes. Attention and memory skills, for example, help employees identify areas for improvement and avoid making the same mistake twice. 

Testing candidates for their cognitive abilities 

Multi-measure talent assessments – like cognitive ability tests, skills assessments, and personality tests – are the best tools for testing candidates’ cognitive thinking. They’re data-backed solutions to identify and evaluate candidates’ cognitive skills fairly and objectively. 

In addition, asking cognitive ability interview questions is an effective recruitment tool to measure cognitive ability. 

Let’s explore practical ways to implement these strategies into your hiring process. 

Cognitive ability tests

Cognitive ability tests are pre-employment talent assessments that measure a range of mental abilities, like problem-solving, spatial reasoning, and critical thinking. 

Cognitive ability tests include multiple-choice questions, logic puzzles, reading comprehension, and math problems. They’re great predictors of future job performance because they: 

• Evaluate a candidate’s ability to navigate a dynamic work environment 

• Assess a candidate’s ability to learn quickly on the job 

• Reveal raw intelligence that a resume might not reflect 

• Identify strong performers and high-potential employees 

TestGorilla currently offers 12 tests to help you assess your candidates’ cognitive capabilities – including the Spatial Reasoning test, Verbal Reasoning test, Numerical Reasoning test, and more. 

Our tests take only 10 minutes to complete and are created by subject matter experts to ensure accuracy and consistency in the assessment process. 

Role-specific skills tests 

Role-specific skills tests are more granular than cognitive ability tests, but they still provide valuable information about how candidates think in a work-related context. They’re designed to evaluate a candidate’s ability to perform tasks relevant to a particular role. 

TestGorilla’s E-commerce Analytics test, for example, evaluates candidates’ knowledge of data analysis in the e-commerce market. It covers skills like: 

• Market analysis 

• Website/app data analysis 

• E-store website/app audit

• Traffic channel audit

This test helps employers hire e-commerce analysts with strong cognitive skills – like logic, reasoning, memory, and attention – who can make data-driven marketing decisions. 

While role-specific tests are more geared toward what a candidate knows, they provide meaningful insights about candidates’ cognitive abilities when combined with other assessments. 

Personality tests

Personality tests are also helpful tools for identifying and evaluating candidates’ cognitive skills. They consist of multiple-choice self-assessment questions where the candidate chooses which traits or statements apply most to their behavioral preferences.

The goal of these tests is to reveal a candidate’s personality type. It can provide an insight into their underlying characteristics like motivation, communication style, temperament, character, and identity. However, they can also shed light on candidates’ cognitive abilities. 

For instance, TestGorilla’s DISC Personality test classifies how a candidate expresses emotions into four types: dominance (D), influence (I), steadiness (S), and conscientiousness (C).

A candidate with an influential DISC type is focused on coordinating with co-workers and working within teams. Their main goal is to unite with others, but they also value sharing their own ideas and opinions. Influential personality types have cognitive abilities like attention and reasoning, which they use to persuade others of their point of view. 

In sum, using personality tests enables you to assess candidates’ behavioral traits and gives you a peek into their cognitive abilities. 

Cognitive ability interview questions 

Asking cognitive ability interview questions is an important next step in your assessment process. They’re more subjective than multi-measure talent assessments (no interview is entirely objective) but still give you meaningful data about candidates’ cognitive skills in real time.

For example, you can ask more general cognitive ability questions like, “Which skills do you use to cope with stressful situations?” Or, you can ask more specific questions about teamwork, skills, and workplace scenarios. Below are some examples.

You can also cater cognitive ability interview questions to your organization’s needs by creating custom questions.

It’s important to remember that these interview questions are most effective after candidates have completed a combination of pre-employment tests. 

Assess candidates’ cognitive skills with TestGorilla

Attention, memory, logic and reasoning, and audio and visual processing are cognitive abilities that allow candidates to focus on tasks and recall important information. Understanding and testing these cognitive abilities in your applicants is vital to hiring high-performing talent. 

To assess candidates properly, use multi-measure talent assessments like cognitive ability tests, role-specific skills tests, and personality tests. You can also ask cognitive ability interview questions to evaluate candidates’ thought processes and problem-solving in real time. 

TestGorilla makes the assessment process easy and bias-free with a library of more than 300 scientifically backed tests. Explore our extensive test library, or sign up for a free TestGorilla account to start evaluating your candidates’ cognitive abilities today.