[1] A cognitive shift can occur when a person undergoes a new experience, such as some astronauts experiencing the overview effect when launched into space.
[2] Cognitive shifts can occur with or without the aid of an externally ingested psychoactive substance such as LSD or peyote.
Psychedelic experiences often involve sudden shifts in cognitive association and emotive content.
It was theorised by earlier behavioral psychologists that individuals were empty vessels and new experiences would be created by being repeatedly exposed and/or rewarded in relation to certain things (such as in rote learning of times tables).
A lot of attention has been given to the topic of bilingual cognition research due to the fact that speaking multiple languages changes the way environments are evaluated.