Cognitive Test - Definition, Importance, Types, Factors & Example

What is Cognitive Test?

Cognitive tests are used to assess the cognitive capabilities of humans and/or animals. Cognitive tests are widely used in staffing processes by organizations. Cognitive tests help to find out how individuals would react when put in certain situations that they might encounter while on the job, having the proper mental abilities is also essential while looking for the correct person for the job. Cognitive abilities are the abilities of humans or animals to acquire knowledge through thought, experience and senses.

Importance of Cognitive Tests in Business

These are widely used in many areas from admissions into prestigious colleges to a role in the organization. Cognitive tests range from testing an individual’s verbal, psychometric, numerical abilities etc. It is widely used by organizations to see that other than the hard skills an individual should even have the mental abilities that are required to perform the tasks that the job entails. These are also designed for measuring if a person suffers from Alzheimer’s disease or not.

Cognitive ability testing is a common selection method used to test the knowledge & capabilities of a person. Cognitive tests are used to test various mental abilities like memory, ability to learn and process information. These tests are widely accepted across various sectors and sometimes hiring is done solely on the basis of cognitive tests. These can be administered in various ways example pen and paper method or computer-based method. It is also a great method as well as a cost-effective method to quickly sort through the applicants when the applicant pool is large.

Cognitive Test Factors

The factors which are tested through such cognitive tests are:

1. Intelligence

2. Language

3. Problem Solving

4. Memory

5. Attention

6. Perception

Types of Cognitive Tests

Some of the popular cognitive tests are:

1. Mirror test (to test self-awareness)

2. Draw-a-person Test

3. Wonderlic Test (to test group intelligence)

4. Miller analogies Test (I.Q. Test)

5. Situational Judgement Test (to test individuals under hypothetical conditions).

6. T maze test (to test learning ability)

7. Sally–Anne test (The ability to attribute false beliefs to others).

Advantages & Disadvantages of Cognitive Tests

Some advantages of cognitive tests are:

1. They are widely accepted and a standardized way of testing cognitive abilities.

2. Cost effective and less time consuming method to sort through applicants

3. These tests are highly reliable

Certain disadvantages are:

1. People from the same background or experiences may tend to do better than others leading to lack of diversity.

2. Tests do not account for some ability differences between genders and may result in the tests favoring one of the genders

Example of Cognitive Tests

These tests are of many types checking various cognitive abilities of individuals they are standardized and widely accepted. Some of the types of tests are mirror test (to test self awareness), T maze test (to test learning ability), Sally–Anne test (The ability to attribute false beliefs to others). These are some of the many cognitive tests that are there to test various aspects like memory, working memory, long term memory, short term memory, intelligence tests and situational judgement tests are there to test the various aspects of cognitive abilities of humans and animals.

Hence, this concludes the definition of Cognitive Test along with its overview.

This article has been researched & authored by the Business Concepts Team. It has been reviewed & published by the MBA Skool Team. The content on MBA Skool has been created for educational & academic purpose only.

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