Distributed cognition

Distributed cognition is a theory of psychology developed in the mid 1980s by Edwin Hutchins. Using insights from sociology, cognitive science, and the psychology of Vygotsky (cf activity theory) it emphasizes the social aspects of cognition. It is a framework (not a method) that involves the co-ordination between individuals and artifacts. It has two key components:
# the representations that information is held in and transformed across
# the process by which representations are co-ordinated with each other.

Distributed cognition is a branch of cognitive science that proposes that human knowledge and cognition are not confined to the individual. Instead, it is distributed by placing memories, facts, or knowledge on the objects, individuals, and tools in our environment. Distributed cognition is a useful approach for (re)designing social aspects of cognition by putting emphasis on the individual and his/her environment. Distributed cognition views a system as a set of representations, and models the interchange of information between these representations. These representations can be either in the mental space of the participants or external representations available in the environment.

This abstraction can be categorized into three distinct types of processes.
# Cognitive processes may be distributed across the members of a social group.
# Cognitive processes may be distributed in the sense that the operation of the cognitive system involves coordination between internal and external (material or environmental) structure.
# Processes may be distributed through time in such a way that the products of earlier events can transform the nature of related events.

Early research

J. Roberts (1964) thought that social organization could be seen ascognition through a community. He described the cognitive aspectsof a society by looking at the present information and how it movesthrough the people in the society.

Daniel L. Schwartz (1978) proposed a distribution of cognition through cultureand the distribution of beliefs across the members of a society.

In 1993, Gavriel Salomon stated that there were two classes ofdistributive cognition: shared cognition and off-loading. Sharedcognition is that which is shared among people through common activitysuch as conversation where there is a constant change of cognitionbased on the other person's responses. An example of off-loading wouldbe using a calculator to do arithmetic or a creating a grocery listwhen going shopping. In that sense, the cognitive duties areoff-loaded to a material object.

Applications

Distributed cognition as a theory of learning, i.e. one in which the development of knowledge is attributed to the system of human agents interacting dynamically with artifacts, has been widely applied in the field of distance learning, especially in relation to Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) and other computer-supported learning tools. Distributed cognition illustrates the process of interaction between people and technologies in order to determine how to best represent, store and provide access to digital resources and other artifacts.

The Turing Test may be used as an auditionary test for determining distributedcognition. "The candidate must be able to exhibit the performancecapacities of a normal human being, indistinguishably from a humanbeing, to a human being." [eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/12368/3/discintro.rtf]

Collaborative Tagging on the world wide web is one of the most recent developments in technological support for distributed cognition. Beginning in 2004 and quickly becoming a standard on websites, collaborative tagging allows users to upload or select materials (e.g. pictures, music files, texts, websites) and associate tags with these materials. Tags can be chosen freely, and are similar to keywords. Other users can then browse through tags; a click on a tag connects a user to similarly tagged materials. Tags furthermore enable tag clouds, which graphically represent the popularity of tags, demonstrating co-occurrence relations between tags and thus jump from one tag to another.

Distributed cognition can also be seen through cultures and communities. Learning certain habits or following certain traditions is seen as cognition distributed over a group of people. Exploring distributed cognition through community and culture is one way to understand how it may work.

With the new research that is emerging in this field, the overarching concept of distributed cognition enhances the understanding of interactions between humans, machines and environments.

Quotes

Educational Psychology“People think in conjunction and partnership with others and with the help of culturally provided tools and implements” (Salomon, 1993, p. xiii).

Cognitive Science“The emphasis on finding and describing ‘knowledge structures’ that are somewhere ‘inside’ the individual encourages us to overlook the fact that human cognition is always situated in a complex sociocultural world and cannot be unaffected by it” (Hutchins, 1995, p. xiii).

Metaphors and examples

Distributed cognition is seen when using paper and pencil to do a complicated arithmetic problem. The person doing the problem may talk with a friend to clarify the problem, and then must write the partial answers on the paper in order to be able to keep track of all the steps in the calculation. In this example, the parts of distributed cognition are seen in:
*setting up the problem, in collaboration with another person,
*performing manipulation/arithmetic procedures, both in one's head and by writing down resulting partial answers.The process of working out the answer requires not only the perception and thought of two people, it also requires the use of a tool (paper) to extend an individual's memory. So the intelligence is distributed, both between people, and a person and an object.

Another metaphor for distributed cognition would be a plane and the crew on it. It is not the cognitive performance and expertise of any one single person or machine that is important for our well being. It is the cognition that is distributed over the personnel, sensors, and machinery both in the plane and on the ground, including but not limited to the pilots and crew as a whole.

References

* Brown, Ann L., et al. “Distributed Expertise in the Classroom.” Distributed Cognitions: Psychological and Educational Considerations. Ed. Gavriel Salomon. New York: Cambridge UP, 1993. 188-28.
* Hutchins, E. (1995) "Cognition in the Wild" (ISBN 0-262-58146-9) (MIT Press).
* Hutchins, E. (1995) "How a cockpit remembers its speeds". Cognitive Science, 19, 265-288.
* Norman, D.A. (1993) "Things that make us smart" (Addison-Wesley).
* Perry, M. (2003) "Distributed Cognition". In J.M. Carroll (Ed.) "HCI Models, Theories, and Frameworks: Toward an Interdisciplinary Science" (Morgan Kaufmann) 193-223.
* Rogers, Y. and Scaife, M. (1997)
* Zhang, J. & Norman, D.A. (1994) "Representations in Distributed Cognitive Tasks", Cognitive Science, 18, 87-122.
* Salomon, Gavriel. (1993) Distributed cognitions: Psychological and educational considerations. (ISBN 0-521-57423-4) (Cambridge University Press).

ee also

* Activity theory
* Computer Supported Collaborative Learning
* Collaborative Innovation Networks
* Extended mind
* Hive mind
* List of thought processes
* Lesson in 3 parts [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPEXAE9mDo4] about distributed cognition (in Italian)
* [http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/16602/4/distribcog.htm Offloading Cognition onto Cognitive Technology]
*
* Situated cognition
* Social cognition