High cognitive: A person whose mind functions at a high level of cognitive complexity. Their thinking is primarily non-linear, flexible, and open-ended.  They are comfortable with abstractions and with ambiguity, and habitually perceive underlying patterns and relationships which are invisible to others. These cognitive traits are innate—biologically determined, and will express themselves to some degree, with or without external support. Highcogs’ use and cultivation of the mind is as natural to them as the use of the body is for an athlete or dancer.

They are driven by a need for understanding and meaning, and they acquire knowledge for those ends, not merely for the possession of facts. Their self-identity tends to center on their own minds and their intellectual interests rather than socially-approved interests and concerns. Their study, work, and thinking cross disciplinary lines, drawing inspiration from fields that may seem disparate and unrelated. Their thinking processes are qualitatively different from the norm and are largely inaccessible to normal thinkers.

This kind of mind is comparatively rare and is difficult to identify, particularly in childhood, since accomplishment requires both intellectual maturity and a widely inclusive knowledge base. High cognitives’ birthright is intellectual creativity, but this is, more often than not, frustrated and still-born by a lack of self-knowledge. They are a subset of the gifted which has remained largely invisible. IQ is no guide. Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman was a high cognitive, despite his official IQ of 125. There are people with IQs of 180 and above who don’t qualify as high cognitives. They accumulate knowledge rather than create it. They are the experts, the teachers, technicians, scholars, archivists. They are the majority of the gifted.

Finally, why have I chosen to single out and name this small subset? Consider the following terms. Gifted. Gifted and talented. Moderately gifted. Highly gifted. Profoundly gifted. Academically gifted. Intellectually gifted. Creatively gifted.

What is the meaning of “gifted?” Psychologist Jerome Kagan said of his field: “We work with the unfortunate burden of a small number of concepts used repeatedly to refer to a large number of very different phenomena.” So, what is the meaning of gifted? What does it describe? Does it or any of its variations increase our understanding or merely confound it?

When I became aware that there was a type of giftedness never discussed either by psychologists or educators, I had to know more about it, and why it was being ignored. I started on a path that led away from giftedness and toward creativity. In studies of intelligence and creativity, I found many of the answers I was looking for, including intellectual creativity. Intellectually creative giftedness? One more clumsy term. It wouldn’t serve. IQ measures intelligence (supposedly). Intelligence, when you eliminate all the fluff, is about cognitive abilities. I wanted to avoid splitting “gifted” into more useless subdivisions, or slipping into technical sounding jargon. High cognitive is simple and fairly unambiguous. It may not be the best possible term, but it clearly differentiates between the potential creators and the mass of those identified as gifted.

The name might not matter to anyone else, but it does matter to highcogs themselves, because it’s the first step toward self-knowledge.Gifted children become gifted adults, but that knowledge is useful only when  we know what "gifted" actually means for personal and intellectual development.