# Cognitive complexity

Cognitive complexity describes cognition along a simplicity-complexity axis. It is the subject of academic study in fields including personal construct psychology, organisational theory and human–computer interaction.

## History

The concept of cognitive complexity was first proposed by psychologist James Bieri in 1955, marking a significant step in understanding how individuals perceive and interact with their social environments. Bieri explored the intricate relationships between cognitive styles and social behavior, laying the groundwork for future research in psychology and communication.
Bieri tested two main hypotheses in his study:
* Positive relationship between cognitive complexity and predictive accuracy: He posited that individuals with higher levels of cognitive complexity are better at predicting the behavior of others. This implies that those who can consider multiple perspectives and nuances in a situation are more adept at anticipating how others will act or react, thus improving their social interactions and decision-making capabilities.
* negative relationship between cognitive complexity and assimilative projection: Bieri suggested that individuals with greater cognitive complexity would be less likely to engage in assimilative projection. This cognitive process refers to the tendency to project one’s own qualities or feelings onto others, leading to overgeneralizations and misinterpretations. Essentially, a more cognitively complex person is capable of recognizing and respecting the individuality of others, which reduces the likelihood of such projection.
Over the years, cognitive complexity has been linked to various positive outcomes, including enhanced empathy, better problem-solving skills, and improved emotional intelligence. In educational and organizational settings, understanding cognitive complexity has helped develop training programs aimed at fostering critical thinking and interpersonal skills, thereby contributing to more effective teamwork and collaboration.

## In artificial intelligence

In an attempt to explain how humans perceive relevance, cognitive complexity is defined as an extension of the notion of Kolmogorov complexity. It amounts to the length of the shortest description available to the observer. For example, individuating a particular Inuk woman among one hundred people is simpler in a village in Congo than it is in an Inuit village.
Cognitive complexity is related to probability (see Simplicity theory): situations are cognitively improbable if they are simpler to describe than to generate. Human individuals attach two complexity values to events:
* description complexity (see above definition)
* generation complexity: the size of the minimum set of parameter values that the 'world' (as imagined by the observer) needs to generate the event.
To 'generate' an event such as an encounter with an Inuk woman in Congo, one must add up the complexity of each event in the causal chain that brought her there. The significant gap between both complexities (hard to produce, easy to describe) makes the encounter improbable and thus narratable.

## In computer science

In human–computer interaction, cognitive (or psychological) complexity distinguishes human factors (related to psychology and human cognition) from, for example, computational complexity.

## In psychology

Cognitive complexity is a psychological characteristic or psychological variable that indicates how complex or simple is the frame and perceptual skill of a person.
A person who is measured high on cognitive complexity tends to perceive nuances and subtle differences while a person with a lower measure, indicating a less complex cognitive structure for the task or activity, does not.
   an aspect of a person's cognitive functioning which at one end is defined by the use of many constructs with many relationships to one another (complexity) and at the other end by the use of few constructs with limited relationships to one another (simplicity)
It is used as part of one of the several variations of the viable non-empirical evaluation model GOMS (goals, operators, methods, and selection rules); in particular the GOMS/CCT methodology.
Cognitive complexity can have various meanings:
* the number of mental structures we use, how abstract they are, and how elaborately they interact to shape our perceptions.
* "an individual-difference variable associated with a broad range of communication skills and related abilities ... [which] indexes the degree of differentiation, articulation, and integration within a cognitive system".

## Related terms

Related to cognitive complexity is the term behavioral complexity, used by some researchers in organizational studies, organizational culture and management.