Cognitive Normativity Bias

A bias where one's own cognitive processes—how one thinks, learns, reasons, remembers—are taken as the universal standard, and any deviation is seen as error or deficiency. Cognitive Normativity Bias is what makes linear thinkers assume that nonlinear thinkers are confused, what makes verbal thinkers assume that visual thinkers are disorganized, what makes fast processors assume that slow processors are stupid. It's the assumption that there is one right way to think, and that way is whatever way you think. This bias is especially common in educational settings, where one cognitive style is privileged and all others are accommodated (if they're lucky) or pathologized (if they're not). The cure is recognizing that cognition is diverse, that different minds work differently, and that difference is not deficit.

Example: "He thought in images, not words. His teacher thought in words, not images. Cognitive Normativity Bias meant the teacher saw his visual thinking as a problem to fix, not a different way of knowing. 'You need to learn to think clearly,' she said, meaning 'you need to think like me.' He never did, but he learned that his mind was 'wrong.' The bias had done its work: making difference feel like failure."

by Dumu The Void February 20, 2026

Spectralism (Cognitive Sciences)

A framework for understanding the mind that focuses on the role of non-conscious, implicit, and "ghostly" processes in shaping thought and behavior. It suggests that consciousness is just the brightly lit stage, while the real action happens in the wings—the vast network of heuristics, embodied memories, priming effects, and cognitive biases that operate below the threshold of awareness. A decision to buy a car isn't a rational choice; it's the culmination of a thousand spectral influences: the smell of your dad's old car, a half-remembered ad, the feeling of the seat fabric.

Spectralism (Cognitive Sciences) Example:
"I thought I chose this soda because I like the taste. But according to Spectralism, my 'choice' was just the final output of a ghost parliament in my brain, where a spectral brand memory from a Super Bowl ad ten years ago was the majority whip."

by Abzugal February 21, 2026

Spectrumism (Cognitive Sciences)

A model of the mind proposing that cognitive faculties like memory, attention, and rationality are not discrete modules but continuous, overlapping functions. It suggests that the line between a "normal" brain and a "disordered" brain is a matter of degree, not kind. For example, the difference between focused attention and ADHD is not a switch but a dial. Everyone falls somewhere on the spectrums of autistic traits, anxiety, and neuroticism.

Spectrumism (Cognitive Sciences) Example:
"I'm not 'a little bit OCD' because I like my desk organized. But Spectrumism acknowledges that my need for order and someone with a clinical diagnosis are on the same spectrum of 'orderliness behavior,' just at very different intensities. It's not binary."

by Abzugal February 21, 2026

Fractalism (Cognitive Sciences)

A model of the mind proposing that cognition itself is a fractal process. A single thought contains the pattern of a whole line of reasoning. A moment of perception is structured like a whole memory. The way you solve a small, trivial problem (like a typo) is a miniature, faster version of how you solve a major life crisis. The brain is not a computer with different programs, but a single, infinitely complex pattern-generator, creating self-similar structures of thought at every level of consciousness.

Fractalism (Cognitive Sciences) "The way you panicked over that typo in your email—the frantic search for a solution, the blame-shifting, the eventual acceptance—was the exact same pattern as how you handled your last breakup. Your brain doesn't have different 'crisis modules'; it just runs the same fractal pattern on different-sized inputs."

by Abzugal February 21, 2026