From fragmentation to convergence: Information-Scientific-Cognitive Literacy

Abstract

Objective: To characterize the specificities and limits of information, scientific, and cognitive literacies, articulating them within an integrated literacy perspective.

Method: Theoretical essay of an analytical-interpretative nature, grounded in a narrative literature review across the fields of Information Science, Science Education, and Cognitive Psychology. The text draws on the historical analysis of the three literacies to examine their transformations and identify conceptual and formative gaps.

Results: The analysis indicates that, although conceptually expanded, information, scientific, and cognitive literacies present limitations when considered in isolation. Information literacy fails to systematize cognitive mechanisms involved in evidence interpretation; scientific literacy does not operationalize informational and heuristic processes essential to public judgment; and cognitive literacy does not integrate regimes of scientific validation and the sociotechnical circulation of information. These gaps hinder the formation of individuals capable of deliberating in contexts marked by uncertainty, misinformation, and asymmetries of expertise.

Conclusions: Information-scientific-cognitive literacy emerges as a strategic competence oriented toward integrating qualified access to information, epistemic understanding of evidence, and cognitive regulation. The constitution of epistemic judgment is established as a central pillar for citizenship in the twenty-first century, within a scenario shaped by the convergence of informational, scientific, and democratic crises.