Mental representation
A mental representation ( or cognitive representation ) , in philosophy of mind , cognitive psychology , neuroscience , and cognitive science , is a hypothetical internal cognitive symbol that represents external reality , or else a mental process that makes use of such a symbol: "a formal system for making explicit certain entities or types of information , together with a specification of how the system does this" . 
<triplet> cognitive science <subj> mental process <obj> studies <triplet> mental process <subj> cognitive science <obj> studied by