I was playing Cognition, at the beginning. I'm outside the gate, and if I walk over to one of the doors on the side and try to open it, she says it's locked. But then if I click the other door, there's a pause, and then she's instantly standing beside it. I can't see her walking to it. I don't think this is the way it's supposed to be. What causes this, and how can it be fixed? Is there a patch?

I'm using Windows 7 64 bit btw.

So this is to be expected throughout the game running on any machine? There's nothing wrong with what I'm doing per-se but the game itself is defective? That's stupid! Is there at least - or will there be - a patch to fix it?

I don't know if it's on every machine or only affects certain configurations, but a lot of people experience minor graphic glitches, e.g. this one linked here.
I wouldn't hold my breath for a patch. It doesn't look like a single issue to fix, but rather a flaw in the overall usage of the games engine.