One of the two foundational commitments of cognitive linguistics. Represents the view that the principles of linguistic structure should reflect what is known about human cognition from other disciplines, particularly the other cognitive sciences (philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence and neuroscience).

It follows from the cognitive commitment that language and linguistic organization should reflect general cognitive principles rather than cognitive principles that are specific to language. This commitment, central to and definitional of cognitive linguistics, leads to the generalization commitment and the rejection by cognitive linguists of the modular approach to language and the mind adopted in formal linguistics.