The term cognitive fluidity refers to the capacity of the modern human mind to combine different ways of thinking with stores of knowledge to arrive at original thoughts, which are often highly creative and rely on metaphor and analogy. As such, cognitive fluidity is a key element of the human imagination. The term has been principally used to contrast the mind of modern humans, especially those after 50,000 B.P. (before present), with those of archaic humans such as Neanderthals and Homo erectus. The latter appear to have had a mentality that was domain-specific in nature—a series of largely isolated cognitive domains for thinking about the social, material, and natural worlds. With the advent of modern humans the barriers between these domains appear to have been largely removed and hence cognition became more fluid.

See also EXPERIENCE, RELIGIOUS: COGNITIVE AND NEUROPHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS; EVOLUTION, HUMAN

STEVEN MITHEN