Cognitive Mind Mapping

Human mind is one of the most mysterious organs of the body. Besides governing the voluntary and involuntary functions of our body, the mind has the ability to think, imagine and analyze. Imagination is the ability to create visual and logical interpretation of our thoughts. It is the power of imagination that is garnered in the field of mind mapping. Mind Mapping is not a new area of research. It has been thoroughly studied by psychologists and neuroscientists since the last century. With scientifically proven experiments and statistics, the working of the mind has been tracked and analyzed so that we can visualize the mind maps and benefit from it.

What is Cognitive Mind Mapping?
Thinking is a necessary element of our mind that helps us to respond to the world. Normally, the mind is always occupied with some thoughts or the other. The mental processes in the mind are conveyed to us in the form of images. For instance, think of a chocolate and you can immediately recall the smell, color and picture of your favorite chocolate in no time. This is basically the integration of our mind's ability to perceive things according to our senses. The sense of touch, smell and vision is automatically transferred to the brain via the neurons. Cognition is a similar effort of our brain that refers to the psychological transformations that our mind goes through while we are involved in mental processes or thinking.

A series of psychological changes in the mind help us to respond to the external stimulus. Cognition, in the broader sense, implies learning, applying knowledge, intelligence, planning, decision making and logical thinking. Cognitive mind mapping is an extension of mind mapping that involves the study of the thought process of our brain with the help of mind techniques, like visualizing facts and figures by relating them to diagrams, graphs and pictures.

Cognitive mind maps are mental codes or models that help to simplify and solve intricate problems of innovation, implementation, operation management and decision making. Cognitive mind maps streamline the process of thinking and analyzing by breaking the given task into various sub tasks. This helps the mapper to link all the pros and cons of a problem and thus take effective decisions. Cognitive mind maps are popular in the corporate world, engineering, architecture and designing. Some of the basic applications of mind maps are to remember things, places and speeches with the help of mnemonic codes or diagrams.

Techniques Used in Cognitive Mind Mapping
There are various techniques that are employed to find solutions to certain problems that require deep thinking and team work. Often, the problem is presented to the team/individual in a written or oral form. Written problems are better as they can be easily referred, in case of refining the process of thinking. The team members or an individual can then branch the various segments of the problem using his intelligence and write it in hierarchical method with the toughest problem at the top. Further, these problems are divided into smaller fragments of tasks that are easier to handle and simpler to solve. You may represent your words/phrases/mnemonics in diagrams. For instance, you can use a pyramidal structure to represent the priorities of your problem. Moreover, as you proceed, you will come out with different options/ways to make the problem simpler. Keep listing those ideas/thoughts by making bullets or marking with an arrow. Such measures help the mind to objectively focus on the problem and facilitate a faster decision making process.

Mind mapping helps to transform vague ideas into concrete projects. Mind maps can be drawn during lectures, sessions, interviews and corporate meetings. Once these techniques are mastered, they prove to be an excellent tool to make quick decisions. Mind mapping software is available that help the mapper learn the mind mapping tips and increase the speed of decision making. Cognitive mind maps help students remember complex equations and long answers. Practicing mind mapping techniques for a few weeks can yield beneficial results and help us utilize the inherent power of the brain in a better way.