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Socially distributed cognition is a theoretical framework that examines how cognitive processes are shared and distributed across individuals and social groups, emphasizing the role of social interactions, cultural tools, and collaborative practices in shaping knowledge and understanding.

In this paper, we consider a few actual cases of mnemonic strategies among older subjects (older than 65). The cases are taken from an ethnographic study, examining how elderly adults cope with cognitive decline. We believe that these...more

In this paper, we consider a few actual cases of mnemonic strategies among older subjects (older than 65). The cases are taken from an ethnographic study, examining how elderly adults cope with cognitive decline. We believe that these cases illustrate that the process of remembering in many cases involve a complex distributed web of processes involving both internal or intracranial and external sources. Our cases illustrate that the nature of distributed remembering is shaped by and subordinated to the dynamic characteristics of the on-going activity and to our minds suggest that research on memory and distributed cognition should focus on the process of remembering through detailed descriptions and analysis of naturally occurring situations.

The socially-distributed nature of cognitive processing in a variety of organizational settings means that there is increasing scientific interest in the factors that affect collective cognition. In military coalitions, for example, there...more

The socially-distributed nature of cognitive processing in a variety of organizational settings means that there is increasing scientific interest in the factors that affect collective cognition. In military coalitions, for example, there is a need to understand how factors such as communication network topology, trust, cultural differences and the potential for miscommunication affects the ability of distributed teams to generate high quality plans, to formulate effective decisions and to develop shared situation awareness. The current paper presents a computational model and associated simulation capability for performing in silico experimental analyses of collective sensemaking. This model can be used in combination with the results of human experimental studies in order to improve our understanding of the factors that influence collective sensemaking processes.

This work explores revolutions in human and organizational cognition that have resulted from new technologies and methods for managing the kinds of persistent knowledge that form Karl Popper's (1972) world 3. World 3 knowledge includes...more

This work explores revolutions in human and organizational cognition that have resulted from new technologies and methods for managing the kinds of persistent knowledge that form Karl Popper's (1972) world 3. World 3 knowledge includes the logical contents of books, libraries, computer memories, etc. Persistent or "explicit" knowledge is a major blind spot for many of today's KM practitioners because of their reliance on a much narrower concept of knowledge derived from Michael Polanyi's works. This paper seeks to highlight and fill in that blind spot. Knowledge workers using different cognitive tools often become so heatedly involved in irrational arguments about which tools are best, that bystanders call such discussions "holy wars". This is symptomatic of historically unprecedented cognitive and technological revolutions that fundamentally change how individuals and organizations interact with the world. To explain what is behind these holy wars, I weave together disparate themes, including epistemology, military affairs, the evolution and heredity of complex systems, and ideas regarding revolutions in human cognition to shed new light on the importance of knowledge in organizations.

This paper explores and identifies cognitive issues that develop out of the use of representational media by collaborating groups of people involved in problem solving. We take the analytic perspective of distributed cognition to examine...more

This paper explores and identifies cognitive issues that develop out of the use of representational media by collaborating groups of people involved in problem solving. We take the analytic perspective of distributed cognition to examine the role that these artifacts have on information processing activity in augmenting human action and in transforming the problem space. The analysis is further used in identifying issues for cognitive engineering in the design of spatial, augmentative resources to support collaborative problem solving.

According to the Theory of Distributed Cognition, cognition is distributed in individuals, among individuals, in media and environment, etc. Researchers designed the project of Online English Writing and Learning, analyzed writing process...more

According to the Theory of Distributed Cognition, cognition is distributed in individuals, among individuals, in media and environment, etc. Researchers designed the project of Online English Writing and Learning, analyzed writing process of the non-Englishmajor freshmen in China, and made a research on the practice of learning generating model of mobile English writing. It is found that the distributed cognition in media, individuals and community takes an important role in English writing, and it can reduce the learners' cognitive load and improve their writing proficiency.

My thesis takes steps towards understanding the role technology can play in supporting multisession creative collaborative work. This is achieved by exploring the relationship between the outcomes of a session of work and the resources...more

My thesis takes steps towards understanding the role technology can play in supporting multisession creative collaborative work. This is achieved by exploring the relationship between the outcomes of a session of work and the resources available within the environment where work takes place. My domain of study is Joint Music Composition, which is a form of collaborative work that requires participants to generate, share, develop and remember information about a musical composition across a number of sessions. Although musical instrument and recording technology have advanced, there appears to be little understanding of how technology can be used to support collaboration in Joint Music Composition. To investigate this, I used the Distributed Cognition framework (Hutchins, 1995a), which has traditionally been employed to study work activities within socio-technological settings, to better understand how to support collaboration and coordination within my domain of study. The findings ...

My thesis takes steps towards understanding the role technology can play in supporting multisession creative collaborative work. This is achieved by exploring the relationship between the outcomes of a session of work and the resources...more

My thesis takes steps towards understanding the role technology can play in supporting multisession creative collaborative work. This is achieved by exploring the relationship between the outcomes of a session of work and the resources available within the environment where work takes place. My domain of study is Joint Music Composition, which is a form of collaborative work that requires participants to generate, share, develop and remember information about a musical composition across a number of sessions. Although musical instrument and recording technology have advanced, there appears to be little understanding of how technology can be used to support collaboration in Joint Music Composition. To investigate this, I used the Distributed Cognition framework (Hutchins, 1995a), which has traditionally been employed to study work activities within socio-technological settings, to better understand how to support collaboration and coordination within my domain of study. The findings of my thesis are based on studies conducted in real life settings (i.e., field) and in environments that I helped to organise (i.e., laboratory). Research from the field describes how groups naturally organise their session, their physical setting, and their communication. It also helps to highlight a number of issues relating to the cognitive burden associated with compositions when they are in development. The first laboratory study illustrates the distributed nature of problem solving in Joint Music Composition by giving examples of different ways knowledge is shared within the group and across sessions. The second laboratory study describes how a shared work space appears to change the way knowledge is represented and distributed within two different rehearsal setups. Overall, the main insights that are applicable to informing design relate to the way practitioners of Joint Music Composition manage the distributed nature of problem solving using transient representations across multiple sessions of work.

This paper examines the theoretical and practical problems that arise from attempts to develop formal characterisations and explanations of many work activities; in particular, collaborative activities. We argue that even seemingly...more

This paper examines the theoretical and practical problems that arise from attempts to develop formal characterisations and explanations of many work activities; in particular, collaborative activities. We argue that even seemingly discrete individual activities occur in, and frequently draw upon a complex network of factors: individual, social and organisational. Similarly, organisational and social constraints and practices impact upon individual, cognitive processes and the realisation of these in specific tasks. Any adequate characterisation of work activities therefore requires the analysis and synthesis of information from these, traditionally separate sources. We argue that existing frameworks, emanating separately from the respective disciplines (cognitive, social and organisational) do not present an adequate means of studying the dynamics of collaborative activity in situ. An alternative framework, advocated in this paper, is distributed cognition. Its theoretical basis is outlined together with examples of applied studies of computer-mediated work activities in different organisational settings.

Survival from on-street cardiac arrest is dependent on three factors: early recognition, CPR, and defibrillation. These three elements rely on a successful and complex interaction between a remote dispatcher and a bystander non-expert in...more

Survival from on-street cardiac arrest is dependent on three factors: early recognition, CPR, and defibrillation. These three elements rely on a successful and complex interaction between a remote dispatcher and a bystander non-expert in on-site care. Digital applications have been developed to assist the bystander in performing the rescue procedures. This study focuses on the impact of introducing such an application on the already complex interactions between a bystander and a dispatcher. We performed cardiac arrests simulations and analyzed the results under the prism of distributed cognition. The results show that although the application helps the bystanders perform CPR, it disrupts an already complex interaction due to its characteristics; the distance and number of speakers can hinder the activity of the dispatcher while causing a feeling of loss of meaning and insecurity.

Humans have historically developed tools, both tangible and intangible, to impose order, mitigate risks, and align actions with collective values. This article explores the parallel roles of legal norms and algorithms in establishing...more

Humans have historically developed tools, both tangible and intangible, to impose order, mitigate risks, and align actions with collective values. This article explores the parallel roles of legal norms and algorithms in establishing regularities that may be beneficial to human cognition, shielding it from boundless unpredictability. With an emphasis on the intertwining of rational and emotional facets of human cognition, we delve into the shared ordering functions of law and AI algorithms. The article highlights the challenges, biases, and dilemmas surrounding AI and its regulation. We conclude by advocating for a more structured political approach to AI governance, emphasizing the importance of delineating roles for AI to ensure certain domains remain exclusively within human purview.

Les catégories techniques dans le discours Traduit de l'anglais par Virginie Paul et Jacques Perriault 116 HERMÈS 39, 2004 Mécanismes socio-cognitifs et communication. Les catégories techniques dans le discours Nos perspectives pour...more

Les catégories techniques dans le discours Traduit de l'anglais par Virginie Paul et Jacques Perriault 116 HERMÈS 39, 2004 Mécanismes socio-cognitifs et communication. Les catégories techniques dans le discours Nos perspectives pour étudier le raisonnement en tant que pratique, sont fondées sur un ensemble d'idées différentes formulées au cours des cent dernières années. Des auteurs tels que Dewey (1897), Volosinov (1973), Vygotsky (1986), et Wittgenstein (1953 ; 1972) ont, chacun à leur façon, tenté de fournir un « antidote » aux aspects anhistoriques, dualistes et individualistes de la pensée qui ont dominé l'interprétation du raisonnement. Un élément central de cette réorientation est de considérer la pensée et le raisonnement comme éléments constitutifs des pratiques sociales. Cette idée se retrouve de manière variée che2 plusieurs auteurs. Pour Wittgenstein (1953), s'intéresser aux jeux de langage du point de vue de la langue et de la compréhension conduit à inclure le sens dans l'action et, au-delà, dans le mode de vie. La première implication en est que « comprendre une langue, c'est être maître d'une technique» (§ 199), c'est le niveau le plus fondamental. Seconde implication, la séparation entre la pensée et l'activité langagière est intentionnellement imprécise conformément à la considération fondamentale que quand «je pense dans une langue, il n'y pas de significations qui traversent mon esprit en sus des expressions verbales : la langue véhicule elle-même la pensée » (§ 392). Chez Volosinov (1973), un « mot est un territoire partagé par l'expéditeur et le destinataire, par le locuteur et son interlocuteur » (p. 86). Si l'on considère l'usage de la langue comme outil de travail, la « signification d'un mot est entièrement déterminée par son contexte» (p. 68). Donc, la «tâche de compréhension ne signifie pas, au fond, de reconnaître la forme utilisée, mais plutôt de la comprendre dans un contexte concret et particulier, de comprendre sa signification dans un énoncé particulier, c'està-dire que cela revient à comprendre sa nouveauté et non à reconnaître son identité » (p. 68). Dewey (1897) se refusait à considérer l'acte de penser comme « une faculté de traitement unique et inaltérable » (p. 38), ou comme « un appareil prêt à fonctionner indifféremment et à volonté sur tous les sujets » (p. 39). Son objection impliquait ce qui aujourd'hui serait une vision « située » où les différents éléments de l'acte de penser y suggèrent leurs propres significations et racontent leurs propres histoires. Par conséquent, penser « est le pouvoir de suivre et de relier ensemble les suggestions spécifiques que des choses spécifiques éveillent » (ibid). En combinant ces deux arguments, les intuitions de Vygotsky (1986) sur le rôle central des artefacts physiques dans les pratiques sociales nous rappellent les liens étroits entre la pensée, la communication et les outils. Les artefacts physiques représentent les externalisations (Donald, 1991) de la connaissance; nous reportons sur ces objets des fonctions et des signes représentatifs tels que nombres, lettres, symboles, programmes, etc., avec lesquels nous interagissons. Dans nos systèmes de mesure, d'écriture et de documentation, les catégories du codage du monde apparaissent sous forme textuelle et sont utilisées comme dispositifs de coordination. La force particulière de ces catégories est l'aptitude à transcender le caractère essentiellement transitoire des processus sociaux et à les maintenir uniformes dans des situations locales différentes» (Smith, 1984, p. 60).

In this paper, cooperative compressive spectrum sensing is considered to enable accurate sensing of the wide-band spectrum. The proposed algorithm is based on compressive sensing theory and aims to reduce the hardware complexity of the...more

In this paper, cooperative compressive spectrum sensing is considered to enable accurate sensing of the wide-band spectrum. The proposed algorithm is based on compressive sensing theory and aims to reduce the hardware complexity of the cognitive radio receiver by distributing the sensing work among groups of sensing nodes. The proposed algorithm classifies the cooperated sensing nodes into different sensing groups depending on the quality of the reporting channel between the sensing node and the fusion center (FC). To sense the wide-band analog signal and take a global decision about spectrum occupancy, each node uses its local sensing matrix, which is assigned to its sensing group and a part of a global sensing matrix at the FC. The size of the local sensing matrix of each sensing node, and consequently the contribution of this node in the overall measurement vector, depends on its sensing group. The FC classifies and rearranges the compressed data to formulate one global measurement vector which is used with a global sensing matrix to estimate the wide-band signal spectrum. The receiver operation characteristics (ROC) of the overall spectrum sensing system show that the proposed receiver provides more protection to primary users (higher detection probability) at the same secondary user throughput (probability of false alarm).

This paper proposes an analytical framework for the analysis of organizational cognition that borrows from distributed and ecological cognition. In so doing, we take a case study featuring a decision on the topic of agreeing on a set...more

This paper proposes an analytical framework for the analysis of organizational cognition that borrows from distributed and ecological cognition. In so doing, we take a case study featuring a decision on the topic of agreeing on a set point in the agenda of a meeting. It is through the analysis of a few minutes of video-recording used in the case that enables us to demonstrate the power of applying distributed and ecological cognition to organizing processes. Cognitive mechanism, resources, and processes are identified within this combined framework. Mechanisms are described as “socio-material” (CM1)—where “people” and “artifacts” are the related cognitive resources—and as “conceptual” (CM2)—with “group” identity, “topic” understanding, meaning of “procedures,” and perception of “time” as resources. Processes are defined as “coupling,” “de-coupling,” and “un-coupled” depending on the type of relation in place. Finally, the paper presents an agent-based computational simulation to dem...

The power allocation in an underlay cognitive radio network rises up several challenges due to rapid utilization of the available spectrum hole. In this paper, we propose a noncooperative power-game algorithm to solve the power allocation...more

The power allocation in an underlay cognitive radio network rises up several challenges due to rapid utilization of the available spectrum hole. In this paper, we propose a noncooperative power-game algorithm to solve the power allocation problem in an underlay cognitive radio network with two main objectives: (i) to provide good quality of service to cognitive radio nodes, and (ii) to protect the transmission of primary users from the interference generated by nearby cognitive radio. These objectives have been assured by including the following constraints: transmit power on each cognitive node, acceptable aggregate interference at the primary' receiver and quality of service at the cognitive radio' receiver. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm is more convenient in the distributed manner because of its faster convergence in terms of power and the received SINR. Cheating scenario has been tested as well. Moreover, existence and uniqueness for the Nash Equilibrium have been proved mathematically and by simulation as well.

Cognition may require access to past events, for example to understand undesirable outcomes or diagnose failures. When cognition is distributed between multiple participants, a particular representational challenge occurs because not all...more

Cognition may require access to past events, for example to understand undesirable outcomes or diagnose failures. When cognition is distributed between multiple participants, a particular representational challenge occurs because not all of the participants may have directly experienced the focal event. Language can transcend temporal and physical limitations on event accessibility. We suggest that people create complex linguistic constructs as tools to facilitate retrospective cognition. We illustrate this process by analyzing the use of a particular linguistic construct (narrative) in the domain of clinical reasoning. Results demonstrated that narratives support clinical cognition during practitioner-patient interactions. Narratives extended access to clinically relevant events providing information about circumstances, subjective experiences, patient functioning, and prior decisions. Whereas, the hermeneutic nature of narrative allowed collaborative hypothesis testing and creatio...

The discourse of laymen and professionals reveals the dependence of cognition on the interaction between participants, and the limitations of studying expertise by examining isolated individual behavior. This paper examines distributed...more

The discourse of laymen and professionals reveals the dependence of cognition on the interaction between participants, and the limitations of studying expertise by examining isolated individual behavior. This paper examines distributed cognition in the management of Multiple Sclerosis (MS). By varying the level of patient experience with the management of MS, we demonstrate the dependence of physician cognition on the patient’s contribution in four doctor-patient interactions. Experienced patients actively constructed clinical representations and presented initial evaluations for the doctor to refine and validate. Conversations between newly diagnosed patients and doctors demonstrated the physician work to establish a common understanding of the problem and acceptable interventions. Our analysis focuses on the complementary participant roles, and challenges the notion that medical cognition equals physician cognition.

The growing literature on shared decision making and patient centered care emphasizes the patient's role in clinical care, but research on clinical reasoning almost exclusively addresses physician cognition. In this article, we suggest...more

The growing literature on shared decision making and patient centered care emphasizes the patient's role in clinical care, but research on clinical reasoning almost exclusively addresses physician cognition. In this article, we suggest clinical cognition is distributed between physicians and patients and assess how distributed clinical cognition functions during interactions between medical professionals and patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). A combination of cognitive task analysis and discourse analysis reveals the distribution of clinical reasoning between 24 patients and 3 medical professionals engaged in MS management. Findings suggest that cognition was distributed between patients and physicians in all major tasks except for the interpretation of MRI results. Otherwise, patients and physicians collaborated through discourse to develop a common trajectory to guide clinical reasoning. The patients' role in clinical cognition expands the concept of patient-centered care and suggests the need to optimize physician-patient distributed cognition rather than physician cognition in isolation.

Among the many contested boundaries in science studies is that between the cognitive and the social. Here, we are concerned to question this boundary from a perspective within the cognitive sciences based on the notion of distributed...more

Among the many contested boundaries in science studies is that between the cognitive and the social. Here, we are concerned to question this boundary from a perspective within the cognitive sciences based on the notion of distributed cognition. We first present two of many contemporary sources of the notion of distributed cognition, one from the study of artificial neural networks and one from cognitive anthropology. We then proceed to reinterpret two well-known essays by Bruno Latour, 'Visualization and Cognition: Thinking with Eyes and Hands' and 'Circulating Reference: Sampling the Soil in the Amazon Forest'. In both cases we find the cognitive and the social merged in a system of distributed cognition without any appeal to agonistic encounters. For us, results do not come to be regarded as veridical because they are widely accepted; they come to be widely accepted because, in the context of an appropriate distributed cognitive system, their apparent veracity can be made evident to anyone with the capacity to understand the workings of the system.

This article uses a joint insider-outsider research approach to understand the cognitive dynamics associated with implementation of a new empowerment schema. The schema was experientially developed by the founders of a group of teachers...more

This article uses a joint insider-outsider research approach to understand the cognitive dynamics associated with implementation of a new empowerment schema. The schema was experientially developed by the founders of a group of teachers in a network of schools. An outside researcher and the two founders (the insiders) collaborated in a study of the dynamics associated with the implementation of the schema, focusing on the founders' implicit expectations regarding implementation and the cognitive processes involved in the teachers' reception of the schema. These expectations and cognitive processes were uncovered through analysis of dilemmas experienced when the founders implemented the schema at a faculty institute. On the basis of these dilemmas, the article suggests that certain cognitive processes are likely to be evoked in a group or organization when a new schema is introduced and that conflicts are likely to arise because of these cognitive processes.

The history of the human race is one of increasing intellectual capability. Since the time of our early ancestors, our brains have gotten no bigger; nevertheless, there has been a steady accretion of new tools for intellectual work...more

The history of the human race is one of increasing intellectual capability. Since the time of our early ancestors, our brains have gotten no bigger; nevertheless, there has been a steady accretion of new tools for intellectual work (including advanced visual interfaces) and an increasing distribution of complex activities among many minds. Despite this transcendence of human cognition beyond what is "inside" a person's head, most studies and frameworks on cognition have disregarded the social, physical, and artifactual surroundings in which cognition and human activity take place. Distributed intelligence provides an effective theoretical framework for understanding what humans can achieve and how artifacts and tools can be designed and evaluated to empower human beings and to change tasks. This paper presents and discusses the conceptual frameworks and systems that we have developed over the last decade to create effective socio-technical environments supporting distributed intelligence.

Abstract: Modern and future visions of command and control (C2) pose new theoretical and practical issues. These adaptive, rapidly reconfigurable, and distributed organizational structures rely on developing and maintaining shared...more

Abstract: Modern and future visions of command and control (C2) pose new theoretical and practical issues. These adaptive, rapidly reconfigurable, and distributed organizational structures rely on developing and maintaining shared awareness between interdependent components (ie, individuals or teams working towards shared goals). The science of teams has been an effective theoretical driver for understanding and promoting effectiveness in traditional C2. Much of this work can be leveraged in modern C2 as well; however, there ...

The goal of this panel is to discuss and begin to converge on what constitutes generalizable patterns in cooperative cognition. The premise is that by pulling together findings and observations that hold across different research...more

The goal of this panel is to discuss and begin to converge on what constitutes generalizable patterns in cooperative cognition. The premise is that by pulling together findings and observations that hold across different research perspectives, domains, and methodologies, we will further our understanding of the fundamentally cooperative nature of cognition. This understanding is central to the mission of human factors research, which is to provide design guidance and insight for new classes of innovative support tools.

Gestures have been shown to play a key role in mathematical reasoning and be an indicator that mathematical reasoning is embodied-inexorably linked to action, perception, and the physical body. Theories of extended cognition accentuate...more

Gestures have been shown to play a key role in mathematical reasoning and be an indicator that mathematical reasoning is embodied-inexorably linked to action, perception, and the physical body. Theories of extended cognition accentuate looking beyond the body and mind of an individual, thus here we examine how gestural embodied actions become distributed over multiple learners confronting mathematical tasks. We identify several ways in which gesture can be used collaboratively and explore patterns in how collaborative gestures seem to arise in a learning environment involving a motion capture game for geometry. Learners use collaborative gestures to extend mathematical ideas over multiple bodies as they explore, refine, and extend each other's reasoning.

Medical devices are becoming more interconnected and complex, and are increasingly supported by fragmented organizational systems, e.g. through different processes, committees, supporting staff and training regimes. Distributed Cognition...more

Medical devices are becoming more interconnected and complex, and are increasingly supported by fragmented organizational systems, e.g. through different processes, committees, supporting staff and training regimes. Distributed Cognition has been proposed as a framework for understanding the design and use of medical devices. However, it is not clear that it has the analytic apparatus to support the investigation of such complexities. This paper proposes a framework that introduces concentric layers to DiCoT, a method that facilitates the application of Distributed Cognition theory. We use this to explore how an inpatient blood glucose meter is coupled with its context. The analysis is based on an observational study of clinicians using a newly introduced glucometer on an oncology ward over approximately 150h (11days and 4 nights). Using the framework we describe the basic mechanics of the system, incremental design considerations, and larger design considerations. The DiCoT concent...

This research was based upon the assumption that the PCCAT is an instance of a cognitive artifact. An early step in the program was to establish that the PCCAT is a cognitive artifact through a concept analysis using the process...more

This research was based upon the assumption that the PCCAT is an instance of a cognitive artifact. An early step in the program was to establish that the PCCAT is a cognitive artifact through a concept analysis using the process established by Walker and Avant (Walker & Avant, 2005), and is the subject of the first manuscript, "Conceptual Analysis: Externalizing Nursing Knowledge". We discovered that a concept analysis of cognitive artifacts had not been published, so we amended the plan and converted our concept analysis into a dual process. The purpose of the concept analysis was to clearly define the attributes and limitations of cognitive artifacts, and their antecedents, consequences, and external referents. Once the characteristics of the concept entitled 'cognitive artifact' had been established, the same concept analysis process was employed with the PCCAT. Finally, the attributes, limitations, antecedents, consequences, and external referents of the PCCAT were compared to those of the cognitive artifact. The process firmly established the PCCAT as an example of cognitive artifacts. This process placed PCCATs in the concept class of cognitive artifacts and allowing us to determine if other concepts are the same as the cognitive artifact, or only similar to but differing in a least one significant way. The concept analysis, establishing PCCATs as an instance of a cognitive artifact, enables assignment of the seven attributes of a cognitive artifact to the PCCAT, as established by Zhang and Patel (2006). The seven attributes are 1) reduction of user memory, 2) guiding recognition and understanding inferences to support rapid data assimilation, 3) augmenting user knowledge and internal representations,4) supporting user perceptions and cognition without requiring conscious effort of the user, 5) promoting more efficient and effective user action, 6) minimizing abstraction and support effective decision making, and 7) channeling decision making by maximizing accuracy and minimizing user effort. We also established that the PCCAT has an additional attribute not shared with cognitive artifacts, namely that the clinical

The metaphysical assumptions of cognitive science are explored with the goal to develop a problem-centered science relevant to the design and engineering of effective products and technologies. Radical Empiricism is suggested as an...more

The metaphysical assumptions of cognitive science are explored with the goal to develop a problem-centered science relevant to the design and engineering of effective products and technologies. Radical Empiricism is suggested as an ontological foundation for pursuing this goal. This ontology poses a single reality where mind and matter come together to shape experience. Peirce's triadic semiotic system is suggested as a framework for parsing this reality in ways that reveal important aspects of the dynamics of communication and control. Rasmussen's three analytic frames of the 1) Abstraction Hierarchy, 2) the Decision Ladder, and 3) Ecological Interface Design are suggested as important tools for achieving insight into the dynamics of this triadic semiotic system. These ideas are offered as a challenge to both scientists and designers to reassess the basic assumptions that guide their work. The hope is that by facing these challenges we can take the first tentative steps toward a coherent science of what matters.

Distributed cognition is a perspective that primarily has been applied to complex socio-technical systems such as flight decks of commercial airliners, or operating rooms where professionals perform cognitive tasks in environments...more

Distributed cognition is a perspective that primarily has been applied to complex socio-technical systems such as flight decks of commercial airliners, or operating rooms where professionals perform cognitive tasks in environments specifically designed for this. For some scholars distributed cognition is exactly this kind of specialized cognitive system. On the other hand it has been claimed by some workers in the field that distributed cognition is not a kind of cognition but a perspective on all cognition. We have therefore studied an environment very different from the systems previously studied, namely single people’s homes. We find that there are many similarities between the home and the specialized socio-technical environments. To us this suggests that the specially designed complex environments can be seen as specialized cases of the general principles of distributed cognition which are not reflections of “particular work practices” but of general features of human cognition.

Even though information visualization (InfoVis) research has matured in recent years, it is generally acknowledged that the field still lacks supporting, encompassing theories. In this paper, we argue that the distributed cognition...more

Even though information visualization (InfoVis) research has matured in recent years, it is generally acknowledged that the field still lacks supporting, encompassing theories. In this paper, we argue that the distributed cognition framework can be used to substantiate the theoretical foundation of InfoVis. We highlight fundamental assumptions and theoretical constructs of the distributed cognition approach, based on the cognitive science literature and a real life scenario. We then discuss how the distributed cognition framework can have an impact on the research directions and methodologies we take as InfoVis researchers. Our contributions are as follows. First, we highlight the view that cognition is more an emergent property of interaction than a property of the human mind. Second, we argue that a reductionist approach to study the abstract properties of isolated human minds may not be useful in informing InfoVis design. Finally we propose to make cognition an explicit research agenda, and discuss the implications on how we perform evaluation and theory building.

In this paper, cooperative compressive spectrum sensing is considered to enable accurate sensing of the wide-band spectrum. The proposed algorithm is based on compressive sensing theory and aims to reduce the hardware complexity of the...more

In this paper, cooperative compressive spectrum sensing is considered to enable accurate sensing of the wide-band spectrum. The proposed algorithm is based on compressive sensing theory and aims to reduce the hardware complexity of the cognitive radio receiver by distributing the sensing work among groups of sensing nodes. The proposed algorithm classifies the cooperated sensing nodes into different sensing groups depending on the quality of the reporting channel between the sensing node and the fusion center (FC). To sense the wide-band analog signal and take a global decision about spectrum occupancy, each node uses its local sensing matrix, which is assigned to its sensing group and a part of a global sensing matrix at the FC. The size of the local sensing matrix of each sensing node, and consequently the contribution of this node in the overall measurement vector, depends on its sensing group. The FC classifies and rearranges the compressed data to formulate one global measurement vector which is used with a global sensing matrix to estimate the wide-band signal spectrum. The receiver operation characteristics (ROC) of the overall spectrum sensing system show that the proposed receiver provides more protection to primary users (higher detection probability) at the same secondary user throughput (probability of false alarm).

In what follows, I appeal to Charles Babbage's discussion of the division of mental labor to provide evidence that-at least with respect to the social acquisition, storage, retrieval, and transmission of knowledge-epistemologists have,...more

In what follows, I appeal to Charles Babbage's discussion of the division of mental labor to provide evidence that-at least with respect to the social acquisition, storage, retrieval, and transmission of knowledge-epistemologists have, for a broad range of phenomena of crucial importance to actual knowers in their epistemic practices in everyday life, failed adequately to appreciate the significance of socially distributed cognition. If the discussion here is successful, I will have demonstrated that a particular presumption widely held within the contemporary discussion of the epistemology of testimony-a presumption that I will term the personalist requirement-fails to account for those very practices of knowers that I detail here. I will then conclude by suggesting that an alternate account of testimonial warrant, one that has heretofore been underappreciated, ought to be given more serious consideration-in particular in that it is particularly well suited to account for those actual practices of knowers that the personalist requirement leaves unrecognized.

Research on students' learning in computing typically investigates how to enable individuals to develop concepts and skills, yet many forms of computing education, from peer instruction to robotics competitions, involve group work in...more

Research on students' learning in computing typically investigates how to enable individuals to develop concepts and skills, yet many forms of computing education, from peer instruction to robotics competitions, involve group work in which understanding may not be entirely locatable within individuals' minds. We need theories and methods that allow us to understand learning in cognitive systems: culturally and historically situated groups of students, teachers, and tools. Accordingly, we draw on Hutchins' Distributed Cognition [16] theory to present a qualitative case study analysis of interaction and learning within a small group of middle school students programming computer music. Our analysis shows how a system of students, teachers, and tools, working in a music classroom, is able to accomplish conceptually demanding computer music programming. We show how the system does this by 1) collectively drawing on individuals' knowledge, 2) using the physical and virtual affordances of different tools to organize work, externalize knowledge, and create new demands for problem solving, and 3) reconfiguring relationships between individuals and tools over time as the focus of problem solving changes. We discuss the implications of this perspective for research on teaching, learning and assessment in computing.

Distributed cognition is a perspective that primarily has been applied to complex socio-technical systems such as flight decks of commercial airliners, or operating rooms where professionals perform cognitive tasks in environments...more

Distributed cognition is a perspective that primarily has been applied to complex socio-technical systems such as flight decks of commercial airliners, or operating rooms where professionals perform cognitive tasks in environments specifically designed for this. For some scholars distributed cognition is exactly this kind of specialized cognitive system. On the other hand it has been claimed by some workers in the field that distributed cognition is not a kind of cognition but a perspective on all cognition. We have therefore studied an environment very different from the systems previously studied, namely single people's homes. We find that there are many similarities between the home and the specialized socio-technical environments. To us this suggests that the specially designed complex environments can be seen as specialized cases of the general principles of distributed cognition which are not reflections of "particular work practices" but of general features of human cognition.

We use insights and methods from ethnomethodological conversation analysis and discursive psychology to develop an account of embodied word and grammar searches as socially distributed planning practices. These practices, which were...more

We use insights and methods from ethnomethodological conversation analysis and discursive psychology to develop an account of embodied word and grammar searches as socially distributed planning practices. These practices, which were produced by three intermediate learners of Italian as a Foreign Language (IFL), occurred massively in natural data that were gathered during a 3-week period from a third-semester IFL course at a university in the United States. We develop a behavioral analysis of these data that shows: (1) what participants do during planning talk and how they do such talk and (2) whether they actually do what they planned to do.

Corruption has been heavily researched in the past decade, garnering attention from a number of different fields, such as political science, organizations, sociology, and information systems. As a result, focus on anti-corruption...more

Corruption has been heavily researched in the past decade, garnering attention from a number of different fields, such as political science, organizations, sociology, and information systems. As a result, focus on anti-corruption strategies has also increased. Motivated by the notion that individuals are mindfully rationalist (Palmer 2012), such policies fall under two categories: the manipulation of the incentive structure, thus increasing the cost of corruption, and enhancing transparency so that individuals will feel less inclined to engage in corruption under the watchful eye of citizens. In order to support such investments, e-government has been deemed the platform for it. However, studies in this field have been limited in their generation of theoretical frameworks. In addition, it has been observed that most of the studies have adopted a technological deterministic view to technology, overlooking any social factors which might affect the deployment of transparency. As govern...

This paper reports on the preliminary findings of an on-going research on the usability of an interactive tabletop, DiamondTouch in a computer-supported collaborative design environment. It summarizes the analysis of the collaborative...more

This paper reports on the preliminary findings of an on-going research on the usability of an interactive tabletop, DiamondTouch in a computer-supported collaborative design environment. It summarizes the analysis of the collaborative design activities around the table. Modelled after a household coffee table, DiamondTouch provides users with an informal environment where users can sit on comfortable chairs while interacting with the table concurrently.  The framework of  distributed cognition was used as an analytic tool which demonstrated how the communicative events around the tabletop were used to bring the design representations into coordination with one another and how information processing activity was performed.  Researcher examined the relationship between actors, artifacts, and the settings in which interactions occur.  Within a single conceptual framework, the representations flowing through functional systems as objects of analysis could be identified and allowed resea...

Common coding proposes a shared representation in the brain between perception, execution, and imagination of movement. This neural-level representation is considered to support a “direct activation” of action by perception/imagination of...more

Common coding proposes a shared representation in the brain between perception, execution, and imagination of movement. This neural-level representation is considered to support a “direct activation” of action by perception/imagination of movement at the behavioral level. We examine how this two-tier model, where a representation at the neural level supports “direct activation” at the behavioral level, relates to the notion of situatedness—the real-time access and use of environment structure for cognition. Reviewing four leading environment-oriented approaches to cognition (ecological psychology, situated action, distributed cognition, and ecological rationality), we show that the access and use of the environment structures proposed by three of these approaches require a mechanism that supports both representations and direct access. We argue that the two-tier common coding model provides such an integrated mechanism, and, further, it extends and refines the notion of direct perce...

Although nearly a generation old, we are justified in calling Distributed Cognition (D-cog) a "new" approach because of its juxtaposition to the "Good Old Fashioned" alternative, regarded as classical or "canonical" cognitive science...more

Although nearly a generation old, we are justified in calling Distributed Cognition (D-cog) a "new" approach because of its juxtaposition to the "Good Old Fashioned" alternative, regarded as classical or "canonical" cognitive science (Hutchins, 1995, p. 266). D-cog represents a clear departure from a view that computational processes take place over representations "bound by the brain," (Adams and Aizawa, 2008); that is, at the level of the individual cognitive agent (e.g. Newell & Simon, 1972). Correspondingly, D-cog's method of investigation, cognitive ethnography, is also new to cognitive science, even if adapted from anthropology. As reflected in the aims of the Special Issue, the philosophical implications of D-cog have yet to be evaluated fully. In this paper our evaluative gaze is retrospective, because an assessment of any novel or alternative contribution on conceptual grounds should include reflection on the aspects of the new approach that are genuinely new and any aspects or assumptions that have been forwarded before, even in analogous form. Furthermore, analogous historical frameworks can be useful for considering the limitations or challenges that confront a new approach and for opening areas for future research.

The study of collective cognition has taken many forms in recent years; however, few have confronted the foundational ideas underlying group mentality directly. The current work uses foundational debates in philosophy and the social...more

The study of collective cognition has taken many forms in recent years; however, few have confronted the foundational ideas underlying group mentality directly. The current work uses foundational debates in philosophy and the social sciences to propose a model as a meta-theoretical heuristic to orient studies of collective cognition.

Corruption has been heavily researched in the past decade, garnering attention from a number of different fields, such as political science, organizations, sociology, and information systems. As a result, focus on anti-corruption...more

Corruption has been heavily researched in the past decade, garnering attention from a number of different fields, such as political science, organizations, sociology, and information systems. As a result, focus on anti-corruption strategies has also increased. Motivated by the notion that individuals are mindfully rationalist (Palmer 2012), such policies fall under two categories: the manipulation of the incentive structure, thus increasing the cost of corruption, and enhancing transparency so that individuals will feel less inclined to engage in corruption under the watchful eye of citizens. In order to support such investments, e-government has been deemed the platform for it. However, studies in this field have been limited in their generation of theoretical frameworks. In addition, it has been observed that most of the studies have adopted a technological deterministic view to technology, overlooking any social factors which might affect the deployment of transparency. As govern...

Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings includes abstracts of all papers and symposia presented at the annual conference, plus 6-page abridged versions of the "Best Papers" accepted for inclusion in the program (approximately...more

Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings includes abstracts of all papers and symposia presented at the annual conference, plus 6-page abridged versions of the "Best Papers" accepted for inclusion in the program (approximately 10%). Papers published in the Proceedings are abridged because presenting papers at their full length could preclude subsequent journal publication. Please contact the author(s) directly for the full papers.

This paper presents preliminary findings from our empirical study of the cognition employed by performers in improvisational theatre. Our study has been conducted in a laboratory setting with local improvisers. Participants performed...more

This paper presents preliminary findings from our empirical study of the cognition employed by performers in improvisational theatre. Our study has been conducted in a laboratory setting with local improvisers. Participants performed predesigned improv "games", which were videotaped and shown to each individual participant for a retrospective protocol collection. The participants were then shown the video again as a group to elicit data on group dynamics, misunderstandings, etc. This paper presents our initial findings that we have built based on our initial analysis of the data and highlights details of interest.

In online learning environments, students spend a significant amount of time engaging and writing in asynchronous discussion forums (Moore, 2016). It is in these forums where students have a space to share ideas and interact with each...more

In online learning environments, students spend a significant amount of time engaging and writing in asynchronous discussion forums (Moore, 2016). It is in these forums where students have a space to share ideas and interact with each other while discussing the course content and areas of confusion (Beckmann & Weber, 2016; Kent, Laslo, & Rafaeli, 2016; Sharif & Magrill, 2015). Examining the transcripts of these asynchronous discussions can identify the patterns of engagement as well as demonstrations of critical thinking by students (Hayati, Chanaa, Khalidi Idrissi, & Bennani, 2019). A technique to examine the types of words being used and identify patterns is known as text mining (Hayati et al., 2019; Moore, 2019). With text mining approaches, a corpus is examined to

In the field of Human Computer Interaction, and more specifically in the field of Computer Supported Collaborative Work and Knowledge Management, cognitive and sociological dimensions cannot be neglected in the design of value analysis....more

In the field of Human Computer Interaction, and more specifically in the field of Computer Supported Collaborative Work and Knowledge Management, cognitive and sociological dimensions cannot be neglected in the design of value analysis. The material and social environment models almost all cognitive processes because the vast majority of them are mediated by the interaction with other agents and other artifacts. Computers connected to the Internet, are becoming fundamental elements of these interactions. Following these premises, in this paper, a methodological framework is applied, called MAIA (Methodology for the analysis of the interaction between agents of a socio-technical system), structured and based on distributed cognition in order to facilitate the analysis of a collaborative Web system oriented to knowledge management in an academic context, at high university level. Specifically, the analysis focuses on the interactions of cognitive agents that occur during the cycle of knowledge management (activities to use, create, distribute and share knowledge), and on how they affect coordination, communication and collaboration, key aspects of group work.