4 min read T he human brain is an incredibly powerful processing engine. Every single second, it takes in millions of pieces of data....reading the room, analyzing social dynamics, and making rapid fire judgments to help you navigate the world. But here is the catch: to process all this information so quickly, the brain takes shortcuts. While these mental shortcuts keep us efficient, they also create systematic "glitches" in how we perceive reality. In psychology, we call the processes cognitive functions and the glitches cognitive biases . If you want to truly understand human behavior...both your own and the people around you...you have to understand how these mental blind spots work. Let's break it down. What Are Cognitive Functions? Before we look at the glitches, we need to understand the software. Cognitive functions are the fundamental mental processes that allow us to interact with the world. Perception: How you take in information through your senses and interp...