Is Cognition Distributed? An Evaluation of Cognitive, Technological and Social Approaches

1
Is Cognition Distributed? An Evaluation of
Cognitive, Technological and Social Approaches

• Rebecca Long, Daniel Lyus,
• Kayley OFlynn and Freya Palmer

2
The Controversy and the Case Study

• How can the processes of knowledge construction,
  evaluation and transmission be most accurately
  explained?
• Case Study An evaluation of cognition in
  relation to collaborative activities and
  technological development

3
Introduction

• Historical origins
• Divide between traditional and sociocultural
  explanations
• Distributed Cognition
• Case study
• Collaborative learning
• The role of technology
• The verdict
• Whether cognition is distributed?

4
Historical Origins of the Conflict
TRADITIONAL V
SOCIOCULTURAL

• Rationalist
• Piaget (1929)
• Innate abilities structure learning
• e.g. schemes

• Empiricist
• Vygotsky (1978)
• External social factors structure learning
• e.g. scaffolding

5
Traditional Cognitive Explanations

• Mind - fundamental to understanding
• cognitive processing is independent of the
  social cultural and material environment
  (Nersessian, 2005, pp.21-22)
• Thinking computation
• Physical symbol system (Newell and Simon, 1972)

6
Traditional Cognitive Explanations

• beliefs and desires are information,
  incarnated as configurations of symbols. The
  symbols are physical states of bits of matter,
  like chips in a computer or neurons in the brain.
  They symbolize things in the world  because they
  are triggered by those things via our sense
  organs, and because of what they do once they are
  triggered... Eventually the bits of matter
  constituting a symbol bump into bits of matter
  connected to the muscles, and behavior happens.
  (Pinker, 1997 pp. 24-25).

7
Cognition as Representation

• Intelligent behaviour is explained by appeal
  to neurally located representations. (Wheeler
  and Clark, 2005).

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Sociocultural Explanations

• Individual wrong unit of analysis
• Should look at Sociocultural and material
  environments and motivations and interests
• Environment integral and decisive
• Cognition occurs outside the individual in the
  social processes of interacting with the devices
  (Nersessian, 2005 pp.49).

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Sociocultural Explanations

• E.g.Catching a ball
• Keep your eye on the ball, and move so that the
  tangent to the balls path is always directly
  towards you. If you do this, the ball will land
  right in front of you, within reach.
• Intelligent behaviour external processes that
  form information channels, but are not themselves
  turned into representations (Wheeler and Clark,
  2005).

10
The Cartesian Nature of the Divide

• Traditional cognitive accounts
• Brain Descartes soul
• Environment Descartes body
• thinking is disembodied from its stimulus
• Sociocultural accounts
• Environment Descartes soul
• Brain Descartes body
• thinking is inseparable from the environment

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Distributed Cognition

• Cognitive science often carries on as though
  humans had no culture, no significant variability
  and no history (Donald, 1991)
• The human is an animate organism, with a
  biological basis and an evolutionary and cultural
  history, a social animal, interacting with others
  and often ignored by core disciplines of
  cognitive science (Norman, 1981)

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Distributed Cognition

• Distributed cognition is an attempt to overcome
  the limitations of traditional cognition by
  studying the complex interactions between
  individuals, artefacts and the environment
• Cole and Engestrom (1997) argue that the idea of
  distributed cognition is not a new one
• Distributed cognition studies all aspects of
  cognition from a cognitive, social and
  organisational perspective and was first
  discussed in this way by Hutchins (1992), it
  provided a new paradigm for conceptualising human
  work activities (Preece et al., 2002).

13
An Example

• The pilot, co-pilot and air traffic controller
  interact with each other
• The pilot and co-pilot interact with the
  instruments within the cock pit
• The pilot and co-pilot interact with the
  environment in which the plane is flying

14
Methodology

• Ethnography
• Interviews
• Laboratory Studies

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CASE STUDYUsing Distributed Cognition And
Contextual Design To Analyse And Represent
Collaborative Activities

• Gabriella Spinelli, Jacqueline Brodie and Mark
  Perry
• (2000)

16
Introduction

• The new direction of CSCW (Computer Supportive
  Co-Operative/Collaborative Work) has led to the
  development of new methods to study work
  practices and work-based technologies
• By refocusing design and using methods such as
  distributed cognition a more holistic approach to
  user centred design can be developed.
• By using the distributed cognition framework we
  can advance our understanding of collaborative
  work practices and interactions with technology.

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Methodology

• Ethnographic Study observing two scenarios of
  work
• Locally Distributed Collaborative over a period
  of 8 months using observations, interviews and
  digital recordings
• Mobile Collaborative Working practices over a
  period of 6 months, observing people in remote
  and mobile settings and supplemented by 15
  interviews to provide context

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Observations For The Locally Distributed Groups

• Locally distributed groups used paper-based
  artefacts as a medium for supporting
  collaborative activities.
• There were 3 teams within L.D category, one of
  which incorporated a large collaborative area
  into their work practice known as the project
  space
• The remaining 2 teams had no such available space

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Findings

• Advantages of using a project space
• - the retrieval of information was facilitated.
• - the team is able to reach a higher degree of
  group awareness
• Disadvantage of not having a project space
• -Teams without a project space were forced to
  plan their group work in advance

20
Implications

• These findings support the theory of distributed
  cognition
• Organisational and social aspects of
  collaboration
• Beneficial to adopt alternative strategies that
  enable collaboration

21
In terms of technology is cognition distributed?

• Traditional psychology
• Ignore the cognitive importance of artefacts
• Focusing on the internal cognition of the
  individual.
• Artefacts as symbols to be manipulated by
  individuals.
• Waloszek, G. (2004)

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Distributed Cognition

• Emergent
• Distributed among actors and artefacts within
  the environment.
• Cognition as socially distributed
• Emphasises
• Collaborative learning
• Role of artefacts as external extensions of the
  cognitive process
• Cognitive tools within an Extended mind (Clark
  Chalmers, 1998).

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The Extended Mind

• Positive potential
• enable us to become more efficient
• Negative
• rely on such aids
• (e.g. calculators or spell-check)

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The studytwo complimentary scenarios of
collaborative work

• Locally distributed
• Paper based
• Large collaborative project space
• information embedded in supporting artefacts
• No project space
• plan procedures in advance
• Mobile technology
• Conscious effort to find a work surface
• often taking over any available
• mobile -phone being the most mobile

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Mobile-phone research Sadie Plant (2001)

• Changes in users thumbs
• stronger
• more dextrous
• increased use in other domains
• Changes in mating displays
• The cell phone changes the nature of
  communication, and affects identities and
  relationships. It affects the development of
  social structures and economic activities, and
  has a considerable bearing on its users
  perceptions of themselves and the world.

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Mobile-phone researchHewlett Packard

• Typing messages temporarily lowers users I.Q. by
  10 points.
• While modern technology can have big benefits,
  too much can be damaging to a persons mind, not
  to mention their work and social life.
• However, maybe this is just the type/ design of
  existing technology!?...

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Back to the study

• Technology should support collaboration without
  overloading cognition
• Offloading onto a meaningful external resource
• free cognitive awareness
• enable more efficient sharing of information in a
  collaborative context

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However

• Technology often fails to utilise users
  connections with their environment in achieving
  their goals
• forced to plan a priori
• limited in mobility
• Existing technology dictates constraints
• activities need to be highly re-organised around
  constraints of the technology disrupting users
  attention and weakening the relationship that
  they naturally establish with their surroundings
  to realise their goals

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However continued

• Paper was more efficient than technology!
• malleable
• didnt need a large amount of configuration to
  the environment
• placed fewer constraints on decision making
• it fitted harmoniously into users external
  scaffolding
• current information technology fails to map
  onto the natural strategies that users have
  developed over time

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Therefore, the study illustrates

• Artefacts, particularly mobile/ tangible
  technology (as discussed in lectures, e.g.
  11/4/05) can affect our (cognitive) behaviour
• In ideal situations, users delegate the
  cognitive load of information they cannot deal
  with and the processes they cannot compute
  internally to the environment and to their
  artefacts to help them perform effectively. In
  reality we see users experience frustration
  because their artefacts are not designed to take
  into account their human limitations and
  strengths

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The Study illustrates

• Technology can hinder cognition (or not live-up
  to its potential),
• leading to frustration and, or error when we need
  to offload excess information in order to
  concentrate on other activities
• When working effectively, can aid cognition
  greatly
• helping us to perform efficiently
• and through utilising our affordances, accounting
  for our limitations and complimenting our skills,
  artefacts can lead to a sense of empowerment
  (Norman, 1998).
• Reinforces the distributed cognition approach.

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So

• we should recognise in the design process that
  physical, social and cognitive dimensions are
  integral components of distributed cognitive
  activity, and that technology should augment
  this, rather than as at present, disrupting it.
• After all we shape technology in this way, and in
  turn are shaped by it as we adapt to and utilise
  it.
• Whether we view this as external or internal (or
  a combination of both) to our cognitive process

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Considerations For The Future

• Wider range of
• technology
• settings
• users
• Design professionals have different mental
  models!?

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Concluding Thoughts

• Intelligent behaviour
• Neurally located representations external
  processes that are not representational.
• Such a theory
• undermines the reason for thinking that
  internal processes need themselves to be
  representational. (Wheeler and Clark, 2005).
• Thus distributed accounts are
• frameworks and analytic methodologies
  for examining the interactions between people
  and artifacts (Rodgers and Scaife, 1997).

35
References

• Clark, A. Chalmers,D. (1998) The Extended Mind.
  Analysis, 58 7-9
• Cole, M. Engestrom, Y. (1997) A
  Cultural-historical Approach to Distributed
  Cognition, In, Ed. G. Salomon. Distributed
  Cognition Psychological and Educational
  Considerations. (1-46) Cambridge University
  Press
• Donald, M. (1991) Orignins of the Modern Mind
  Three stages in the evolution of Culture and
  Cognition. First Harvard University Press, U.S
• Littlejohn, G. (2005) Texts cause more harm
  than dope The Metro, Friday April 22nd 2005.
• Nersessian, N.J. Interpretting Scientific and
  Engineering Practices Integrating the Cognitive,
  Social and Cultural Dimensions. Chapter in
  Gorman, M.E., Tweney, R.D., Gooding, D.C. and
  Kincannon, A.P. Eds. (2005). Scientific and
  Technological Thinking. pp. 17-56. London
  Erlbaum.

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References (2)

• Norman, D. A. (1981) Perspectives on Cognitive
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  Jersey
• Norman, D. (1998) The Invisible Computer. The MIT
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  England.
• Piaget, J. (1929). The Child's Conception of the
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• Pinker, S. (1997). How the Mind Works. New York
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• Plant, S. (2001) On the mobile the effects of
  mobile telephones on social and individual life
  Online Available at http//www.motorola.com/mot
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37
References (3)

• Resnick, L.B., Levine, J. and Teasley, S. Eds.
  (1991). Perpectives on socially shared cognition.
  In Nersessian, N.J. Interpretting Scientific and
  Engineering Practices Integrating the Cognitive,
  Social and Cultural Dimensions. Chapter in
  Gorman, M.E., Tweney, R.D., Gooding, D.C. and
  Kincannon, A.P. Eds. (2005). Scientific and
  Technological Thinking. pp. 17-56. London
  Erlbaum.
• Rogers, Y. Ellis, J (1994) Distributed
  Cognition An Alternative Framewrok for Analysing
  and Explaining Collaborative Working. Journal of
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• Spinelli, G., Brodie, J. Perry, M. (2000)
  Using Distributed Cognition and Contextual
  Design to Analyse and Represent Collaborative
  Activities Online Available at
  http//redesignresearch.com/cscw/Spinelli.doc
  Accessed April 2005

38
References (4)

• Stanton-Fraser, D. (2005) Influences of New
  Technology on Psychology Research in Educational
  Settings (2), Controversies in Cognition
  lecture, Monday 11th April 2005. University of
  Bath.
• Also available online at http//staff.bath.ac.uk
  /pssds/PS30017-5-print.pdf Accessed April 2005
• Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society.
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• Waloszek, G. (2004) Dissolving Boundaries with
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  Accessed April 2005
• Wheeler and Clark, 2005. Genic Representation
  Reconciling Content and Causal Complexity.
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Further Reading

• Elman, J.L. (2005). Connectionist Models of
  Cognitive Development Where Next? Trends In
  Cognitive Sciences, 9(3), 111-117
• Gibson J.J. (1979). The Ecological Approach to
  Visual Perception, Hillsdale, NJ Erlbaum.
• Gorman, M.C. (1997). Mind in The World
  Cognition and Practice in the Invention of the
  Telephone, Social Studies of Science, 27, 583-624
• Latour, B. (1987). Science in action. Cambridge,
  MA Harvard University Press.
• Latour, B. (1999). Pandoras hope Essays on the
  reality of science studies. Cambridge, MA
  Harvard University Press.
• McAdam, R. (2004). Knowledge Construction and
  Idea Generation A Critical Quality Perspective.
  Technovation, 24, 697-705
• Rodgers, Y. and Scaife, M. (1997) Distributed
  Cognition. Available from http//wwwsv.cict.fr
  /cotcos/pjs/TheoreticalApproaches/DistributedCog/
  DistCognitionpaperRogers.html accessed 14th
  April 2005.

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Further Reading

• Woolgar, S. (1986). Science in action. Cambridge,
  MA Harvard University Press.
• Xiaou, Y. (2005). Artefacts and Collaborative
  Work in Healthcare Methodological, Theoretical
  and Technological Implications of the Tangible.
  Journal of Biomedical Informatics, 38, 26-33