Cognitive tasks are like little puzzles or games that help us understand how the brain works. They’re designed to measure different mental abilities—like memory, attention, decision-making, or self-control.

You might be asked to remember a list of words, respond quickly to certain images, or make choices between two options. While these tasks might seem simple on the surface, they give researchers powerful insights into how people think, learn, and react in different situations.

By analyzing how people perform on these tasks, we can learn more about things like ADHD, anxiety, addiction, aging, and many other aspects of mental and brain health. They’re a key part of psychology and neuroscience research—and they help us ask (and answer) big questions about the human mind.