Distributed cognition is a
psychological theory developed in the mid-1980s by Edwin Hutchins. Using
insights from sociology, cognitive science, and the psychology of Vygotsky (cf.
cultural-historical psychology) it emphasizes the social aspects of cognition.
It is a framework (not a method) that involves the coordination between
individuals, artifacts and the environment. It has several key components:
- Embodiment of information that is embedded in representations of interaction
- Coordination of enaction among embodied agents
- Ecological contributions to a cognitive ecosystem
In a sense, it expresses
cognition as the process of information that occurs from interaction with
symbols in the world. It considers and labels all phenomena responsible for
this processing as ecological elements of a cognitive ecosystem. The ecosystem
is the environment in which ecological elements assemble and interact in
respect to a specific cognitive process. Cognition is then shaped by the
transduction of information across extended and embodied modalities, the
representations formed as result of their interactions and the attentive
distribution of those representations toward a cognitive goal.
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.
John Milton Roberts thought that social
organization could be seen as cognition through a community (Roberts 1964). He
described the cognitive aspects of a society by looking at the present
information and how it moves through the people in the society.
Daniel L. Schwartz (1978)
proposed a distribution of cognition through culture and the distribution of
beliefs across the members of a society. In 1999, Gavriel Salomon stated that
there were two classes of distributive cognition: shared cognition and
off-loading. Shared cognition is that which is shared among people through
common activity such as conversation where there is a constant change of
cognition based on the other person's responses. An example of off-loading
would be using a calculator to do arithmetic or a creating a grocery list when
going shopping. In that sense, the cognitive duties are off-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 thinking 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.
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.
- 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.
Hutchins also examines another
metaphor of distributed cognition within the context of navigating a US navy
vessel.[1] In his book USS Palau (Hutchins, 1996),[2] he explains in detail how
Distributed cognition is manifested through the interaction between crew
members as they interpret, process, and transform information into various
representational states in order to safely navigate the ship. In this
functional unit, crew members (e.g. pelorus operators, bearing takers,
plotters, and the ship's captain) play the role of actors who transform
information into different representational states (i.e. triangulation,
landmark sightings, bearings, and maps). In this context, navigation is
embodied through the combined efforts of actors in the functional unit.
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