Cognition refers to all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating. We organize our world using concepts, which are mental groupings of similar objects, events, ideas, or people. For example, 'chair' is a concept. We often form concepts by developing a prototype, a mental image or best example of a category. A robin is a prototypical bird for many people, while a penguin is not.

Intelligence is the mental potential to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations. While there's a concept of general intelligence ($g$), many psychologists believe in multiple intelligences. Howard Gardner's theory, for example, proposes eight independent intelligences, including linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, intrapersonal, interpersonal, and naturalist.