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Cognition is claimed to be extended by a wide array of items, ranging from notebooks to social institutions. Although the connection between individuals and these items is usually referred to as "coupling," the difference between notebooks and social institutions is so vast that the meaning of "coupling" is bound to be different in each of these cases. In this paper I argue that the radical difference between "artifact-extended cognition" and "socially extended cognition" is not sufficiently highlighted in the literature. I argue that there are two different senses of "cognitive extension" at play, that I shall label, respectively, "implementation extension" and "impact extension." Whereas implementation extension is a causal-functional notion, impact-extension hinges on social normativity that is connected with organization and action coordination. I will argue that the two kinds of cognitive extension are different enough to warrant separate labels. Because the most salient form of social extension of cognition involves the reciprocal co-constitution of cognitive capacities, I will propose to set it apart from other types of extended cognition by using the label "symbiotic cognition." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to analyze the possibilities of using the social network Facebook as an instrument of collaborative didactic mediation in teaching concepts. The investigated experience is the result of a didactic intervention based on mediation as the partnership of the formative process with university students of a licentiate course of a public university. The qualitative approach, in the exploratory-explanatory modality, guided the investigation. The theory of distributed cognition and its categories of mediation, interaction, collaborative participation and intellectual partnership were taken as basis for data analysis. The results show that Facebook has great potential as an instrument of intercession from the interactions evidenced through dialogue, cognitive confrontation and the cooperative construction of meanings from the collaborative participation that expressed the contributions of the students to reach the goals through intellectual partnership in search of conceptual understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers are increasingly exploring collaborative behaviour in complex socio-technical systems through in-the-wild investigations to understand, evaluate and technology. The space configuration and tools available in such activities are crucial for the successful collaboration of a group. This work offers an in-the-wild examination of six groups tackling a design project working in an artifact ecology, a space rich in physical and digital artifacts. We delve into the physical and digital space of each of the groups during a 3-month duration to obtain a rich understanding of their collaborative activities. The aim of this work is two-fold; provide summative narrations of each one of the five models of DiCoT to extract design implications and evaluate the usefulness of DiCoT as an analytical tool for understanding artifact ecologies. Through a rich dataset – interviews, focus groups, reflective diaries, online interactions, and video recordings – we construct a summative description of the group behaviour based on the methodological framework of Distributed Cognition for Teamwork. Drawing on these narrations, we provide design implications on the use of an artifact ecology as a shared space for design activities. Both outcomes are then used to evaluate the usefulness of DiCoT as an analytical tool for artifact implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the role of spatial reasoning in learning among 5th and 6th grade students participating in a set of in-school, technology-enhanced, STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) making activities. We focus our analysis on a particular type of reasoning: spatial reasoning. Prior research has shown that spatial reasoning is relevant for problem-solving, participation, and achievement in STEAM disciplines. However, the literature on spatial reasoning lacks qualitative analyses of the processes through which spatial reasoning is learned, enacted, and leads to problem-solving insights, particularly in everyday learning contexts. Spatial reasoning is also underemphasized and undervalued in our schools. And although increasingly popular, hands-on, making activities have the potential to cultivate spatial skills, spatial reasoning has been largely ignored in the literature on learning through making. Informed by a distributed cognitive perspective and using a combination of qualitative categorical coding and interaction analysis, this study provides a qualitative analysis of the relation between spatial reasoning and learning through making. Our analyses show that during making activities, students engaged in frequent and diverse spatial reasoning with a variety of social and material resources and that the social and material contexts of different making activities facilitated different types of spatial reasoning. Our analyses also show how spatial reasoning developed over time and led to learning. Educational Impact and Implications Statement: Spatial reasoning skills are implicated in success in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) disciplines but aren't always addressed in text-based curricula. This study suggests that making activities provide a context for late elementary and middle school students to use and develop spatial reasoning skills and to engage in STEAM problem-solving. It also shows how collaboration and work with particular technology tools, such as computer-aided design (CAD) software can support the development of particular spatial skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have highlighted the patient safety risks in intravenous medication administration, and various technological solutions have been proposed to mitigate those risks, including 'smart pumps' and closed-loop systems. Few studies describe these implementations in detail. In this article, we report on a sociotechnical investigation of a closed-loop documentation system linked with smart pumps for intravenous infusion administration on an intensive care unit. The smart pumps are 'mapped' to an electronic prescribing and medication administration system, allowing infusion rates, volumes and boluses of intravenous medication to be monitored in real time. Ethnographic observations were conducted over 37 h, including direct observation of infusion administration (n = 23 infusions), discussions with clinical staff and semi-structured interviews with intensive care unit managers (n = 2). Analysis was based on the Distributed Cognition for Teamwork (DiCoT) method to understand how information is processed across individuals, teams and technologies. We report on how the system works in context, and identify contributions and compromises to patient safety with new risks that need to be managed at bedside and intensive care unit level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his text 'Wissenschaft als Beruf', Max Weber associates the understanding of science as a vocation with the scientist's ability to present the audience with 'inconvenient facts'. He argues that this presentation provides a 'full understanding of the facts' and overcomes any personal value judgment. This overcoming refers to Weber's understanding of scientific objectivity. I propose to interpret this understanding in the context of contemporary studies of public science communication. I pose the question, 'Should scientists objectively present inconvenient facts to the public or should they neglect objectivity in science-society communication?' I will start by legitimizing this question in the context of contemporary discussions on public science communication. To answer this question I will then use Heather Douglas's observations addressing irreducible complexity of objectivity as a conceptual framework. I will briefly describe, with some modifications, this idea in relation to Weber's representation of 'inconvenient facts'. I then will continue by referencing discussions concerning scientist's norms in public science communication and relate them to the formulations of objectivity above. In conclusion, I will offer an explanation of why the objectivity in Weber's interpretation remains relevant to regulate contemporary public science communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although both market orientation and the Internet intersect at important strategy implementation areas, surprisingly, these two domains have not been well integrated. With market orientation's focus on the use of information associated with market stakeholders and the Internet's ability to facilitate communication and relationships with both internal and external stakeholders, it makes conceptual and pragmatic sense to explore these two areas in concert. The present research develops and tests a conceptual model explaining relationships among market orientation and Internet-related perceptions for managers in small to mid-sized firms. An examination of the market orientation-Internet usage relationship contributes to understanding the process of how an important strategic orientation--market orientation--translates into a key organisational capability: Internet usage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current interest in the tacit aspects of knowledge has diverted attention from the economic significance of its converse, explicit or articulated knowledge, and, by implication, the importance of articulation—the process through which tacit skills and knowledge are made explicit—and codification—the process of rendering articulated knowledge in fixed, standardized and easily replicable form. In partial alignment with the literature on "distributed cognition" the article outlines a general model of articulation as a process involving the interplay of three elements: "theory," "codes," and "tools" in communities ranging in size from small groups to entire industries. The costs and benefits of articulation are discussed, drawing attention to how these may be affected by institutional and organizational design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we review Per Linell's work within the last five decades that led to his dialogism framework, which he defines as a general epistemology of language, cognition and communication. We critically discuss how his contribution on the one hand, altered and qualified existent models within language, communication and cognitive science, because dialogism removed language and cognition from their abstract and mental seat in the brain, and embedded them instead in situational contexts and embodied interaction. In that sense, his dialogism successfully replaced monological assumptions about the mind, action and thinking with more contextual and temporally distributed ones. On the other hand, we also question why Linell has not pursued a more rigorous empirical program for studying human cognition, when he did establish a theoretical apparatus for approaching cognition from a dialogical starting point. In going through Linell's arguments over the past five decades we suggest that this absence of an empirical program is due to his humanistic roots which both have sensitised him to appreciating the contingencies and dynamics of human sense making and cognition, and have impeded him from buying into a necessary condition for pursuing a cognitive analysis, even if he conceptually and methodologically accepts a distributed view on cognition. The outcome of this discussion leads to an empirical-based cognitive analysis of a medical interaction. Altogether, the purpose of this article is to show how Linell's conceptual framework can be put to use in ways that make a dialogical cognitive science achievable. • Provides a critical review of Per Linell's dialogism framework. • Indicates a shift in language and cognition from abstract mental realms to situated contexts and embodied interactions. • Questions why Linell has not pursued a rigorous empirical program for studying human cognition. • Discusses and demonstrates the application of Linell's framework in an empirical-based cognitive analysis. • Showcases the potential for a true dialogical cognitive science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing is recognized as a powerful tool to learn science. Although current research has enriched our understanding of the potential of learning through drawing, scarce attention has been given to the social-cognitive interactions that occur when students jointly create drawings to understand and explain phenomena in science. This article is based on the distributed and embodied cognition theories and it adopted the notion of we-space, defined as a complex social-cognitive space, dynamically established and managed during the ongoing interactions of the individuals, when they manipulate and exploit a shared space. The goal of the study was to explore the role that collaborative drawing plays in shaping the social-cognitive interaction among students. We examine this by a fine-grain multimodal analysis of a pair of middle school students, who jointly attempted to understand and explain a chemical phenomenon by creating drawings and thinking with them. Our findings suggest that collaborative drawing played a key role in (i) establishing a genuine shared-action space, a we-space, and that within this we-space it had two major functions: (ii) enabling collective thinking-in-action and (iii) simplifying communication. We argue that drawing, as a joint activity, has a potential for learning, not restricted to the cognitive process related to the activity of creating external visual representations on paper; instead, the benefits of drawing lie in action in space. Creating these representations is more than a process of externalization of thought: it is part of a process of collective thinking-in-action.

The resident accesses the EHR and notes the patient has a history of heart failure but is unable to perform a physical examination for any features to support recent decompensation of this diagnosis. The attending accesses the patient's electronic health record (EHR) while the nurse (n) telephones the patient's relative with an update - the patient stated that his wife (w) did not wish to travel with him because she was worried about COVID-19 in the hospital. Keywords: clinical reasoning; diagnostic error; distributed cognition; teams; teamwork; telediagnosis; telemedicine EN clinical reasoning diagnostic error distributed cognition teams teamwork telediagnosis telemedicine 143 145 3 02/07/22 20220201 NES 220201 To the Editor, The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of telediagnosis in an effort to facilitate the timely interaction between the patient and clinician necessary for safe care [[1]]. [Extracted from the article]

“Cultural Models” (CM) is a term that has come to apply to culturally standardized and shared/distributed cognitive structures for explaining or structuring action. They contrast with more cultural conceptual systems (such as kinship or ethnobiological terminological systems) and more general procedures analyzing and imposing initial structure on new problems. They are functionally a little like Schank and Abelson’s “scripts”. CMs combine motives, emotions, goals, mechanisms, classificatory information, etc.--in each case, perhaps, cross-linking to separate cognitive structures within which these separate entities are organized, structured, and classified--into possible actions. CMs can be used by individual actors to generate behavior--often after some consideration of the downstream implications of the choice of one model over another--but are not themselves the individual internal cognitive schemas that actually generate behavior. Different CMs are cross-linked with one another in a variety of ways. One area of cross-linkage includes models held by members of a given community in responsse to similar situations (as in overlap among models for doing similar things, modes for use in similar situations, models involving similar attidudes or goals, and so forth). Another kind of cross-linkage involves models for more or less the same thing that are held by members of different communities--expecially where membership overlaps in one way or another. CMs have to be easily learned, productive, and systematic.I want to discuss the implications of these kinds of overlap for the shape of cultural models and the way in which they are learned, held, and applied. Illustrative examples will be utilized, but no systematic formal description or model of CMs will be offered--it’s too soon.

Research addressing collective memory in the Czech context is predominantly based on the constructivist approach laid out by Maurice Halbwachs. This approach can be characterized by an assumption of omnipresent existence of stable structures of meaning with which action is explained. In the existing literature, we can also find alternative approaches based on findings of the cognitive sciences. These approaches can be characterized by searching for neurophysiological invariants which determine the diffusion of cultural representations. With respect to this state of the research field, the aim of this text is twofold. First, to demonstrate that the assumptions highlighting supra-individual semantic structures introduced by the Halbwachsian tradition lead to premature closure of explanation, without taking into account the question of diffusion of semantic structures. Second, to show that the focus on cognitive phenomena (taking into account the question of diffusion of semantic structures) does not have to lead to acceptance of reductionist premises. As a result, this study attempts to suggest an approach which would be able to study collective memory without reliance on supra-individual entities on the one hand and on reductionist assumptions on the other. It seems that the approach of Situational Analysis fits those criteria well and therefore it is introduced in the concluding parts of the text.

The following paper presents a proposal of a theoretical foundation for an application of distributed cognition in overcoming post-war traumas and related social conflicts. The distributed cognition theory states that the cognitive system is a structure distributed between internal-mental and external-objective social world representations across time and space. The basic issue of dialogue in distributed cognition is that distribution as information dissemination in each cognitive component functions in a systemic integrity. The presented perspective of overcoming traumas and war conflicts through dialogue refers to the following aspects of human activity: 1 - the perception of an environment as a construct of own life path and self-image; 2 - active creation of a desired world, life space and desired self; 3 - agentic cognitive mapping of an environment as a real, virtual and potential life space; 4 - a way of elastic control over an environment through discovering objectively present environmental affordances; 5 - achieving agency through discovering possibilities for action rather than barriers; 6 - making the cognitive system more flexible through a change in style of thinking to a constant state of openness to new meanings and values.

Evidence-based health care (EBHC) has given rise to expectations that decision-making be tethered to more high-quality information. As health information technologies (HITs) acquire an increasingly vital role in the information processes involved in EBHC, a more mature understanding is needed of the relationship between HITs and the EBHC activities they serve. In this paper, we conceptualize HITs and EBHC activities on a common foundation of distributed cognition that treats humans, technology, and the environment as interwoven parts of a whole, dynamic system. From that common foundation, we articulate a basis for achieving a contextually sensitive fit between HITs and EBHC activities by providing a framework (DETECT) of 20 properties that can be used to systematically characterize the fit between HITs and EBHC activities. Designers, deployers, and evaluators of HITs can use DETECT to better anticipate, locate, and diagnose the issues that arise when HITs are used to achieve diverse EBHC commitments.

Abstract Background The dominant frameworks for describing how simulations support learning emphasize increasing access to structured practice and the provision of feedback which are commonly associated with skills-based simulations. By contrast, studies examining student participants’ experiences during scenario-based simulations suggest that learning may also occur through participation. However, studies directly examining student participation during scenario-based simulations are limited. This study examined the types of activities student participants engaged in during scenario-based simulations and then analyzed their patterns of activity to consider how participation may support learning. Methods Drawing from Engeström’s first-, second-, and third-generation activity systems analysis, an in-depth descriptive analysis was conducted. The study drew from multiple qualitative methods, namely narrative, video, and activity systems analysis, to examine student participants’ activities and interaction patterns across four video-recorded simulations depicting common motivations for using scenario-based simulations (e.g., communication, critical patient management). Results The activity systems analysis revealed that student participants’ activities encompassed three clinically relevant categories, including (a) use of physical clinical tools and artifacts, (b) social interactions, and (c) performance of structured interventions. Role assignment influenced participants’ activities and the complexity of their engagement. Importantly, participants made sense of the clinical situation presented in the scenario by reflexively linking these three activities together. Specifically, student participants performed structured interventions, relying upon the use of physical tools, clinical artifacts, and social interactions together with interactions between students, standardized patients, and other simulated participants to achieve their goals. When multiple student participants were present, such as in a team-based scenario, they distributed the workload to achieve their goals. Conclusion The findings suggest that student participants learned as they engaged in these scenario-based simulations when they worked to make sense of the patient’s clinical presentation. The findings may provide insight into how student participants’ meaning-making efforts are mediated by the cultural artifacts (e.g., physical clinical tools) they access, the social interactions they engage in, the structured interventions they perform, and the roles they are assigned. The findings also highlight the complex and emergent properties of scenario-based simulations as well as how activities are nested. Implications for learning, instructional design, and assessment are discussed.

This paper proposes a relational history of media artifacts, which decentralizes the dominance of the photographer or filmmaker as the absolute author of the work. It adds an alternative account to understanding the creative process and the subsequent study of media forms by discussing film and photographic practices as the reciprocal affective relationship between the maker, their intentions, materials, technologies, non-human agents and the environment. By reorganizing the anthropocentrism of art historical narratives, which typically exclude corporeality and materiality as drivers of human history, we are able to discuss the complex dynamic meshwork of determinants that bring photographic artifacts into existence: the lived, animate, vital materialism at once emergent and mixing of different causalities and temporalities.

In the paper, I distinguish the bottom-up strategy and the intentional stance strategy of analyzing group intentional states, and show that the thesis of distributed group subject of knowledge could be accommodated by either of them. Moreover, I argue that when combined with virtue reliabilism the thesis satisfactorily explains the phenomenon of group knowledge. To justify my argument, in the second part of the paper, I distinguish two accounts of justification pointing to conditions of group knowledge. The first, which I call the belief-centered approach to group intentional states, determines the concept of group belief and group justificatory reason. The second, the process-centered approach represented by S. Orestis Palermos, employs the theory of virtue reliabilism and focuses on the group knowledge-conducive process. In the paper, I argue in favor of the latter as the internalism associated with the former appears to lack sufficient explanatory power. The theory of virtue epistemology runs into considerable difficulties when trying to deal with an extended epistemic subject composed of one individual and her cognitive artifact. In the two last parts of the paper, I consider the most important difficulties and argue that these obstacles are overcome once one adopts an approach combining virtue epistemology and the thesis of distributed group epistemic subject.

This paper examines how information fundamentally influences the labour process in the information age. The process of becoming human in the labour process brings to the fore the notion of information and our dialectical interactions with our natural environment as organisms-in-the-environment. These insights lead the authors to posit that information/ideas are material. Information/ideas are not ethereal/immaterial, as is commonly believed, which does not negate that information/ideas may be abstract. Taking a fundamental approach serves to discard the concept of immaterial labour and products, to posit an undeniable materialist basis for the labour theory of value. More importantly, it serves to point to the immanence of information and labour in the labour theory of value.

Modern ideas of embodiment have been influential in cognitive science for the past several decades, yet there is minimal evidence of embodied cognition approaches in creativity research or pedagogical practices for teaching creativity skills. With creativity research in crisis due to conceptual, methodological, and theoretical issues, radical embodied cognitive science (RECS) may offer a framework to move the field forward. This conceptual analysis examines the current state of creativity research from the 4E (embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended) cognition and RECS perspectives. Two streams are critiqued for their potential to further knowledge about the development of creative expertise and inform educational practices. Promising directions for future research is discussed, including ways dynamical systems approaches, such as those used in improvisational and musical creativity, might yield new insights about how people develop creative expertise and help address the “higher order thinking” criticisms of RECS.

Cognitive scientists and philosophers recently have highlighted the value of thinking about people at risk of or living with dementia as intertwined parts of broader cognitive systems that involve their spouse, family, friends, or carers. By this view, we rely on people and things around us to “scaffold” mental processes such as memory. In the current study, we identified 39 long-married, older adult couples who are part of the Australian Imaging Biomarkers and Lifestyle (AIBL) Study of Ageing; all were cognitively healthy but half were subjective memory complainers. During two visits to their homes 1 week apart, we assessed husbands’ and wives’ cognitive performance across a range of everyday memory tasks working alone (Week 1) versus together (Week 2), including a Friends Task where they provided first and last names of their friends and acquaintances. As reported elsewhere, elderly couples recalled many more friends’ names working together compared to alone. Couples who remembered successfully together used well-developed, rich, sensitive, and dynamic communication strategies to boost each other’s recall. However, if one or both spouses self-reported mild-to-moderate or severe hearing difficulties (56% of husbands, 31% of wives), couples received less benefit from collaboration. Our findings imply that hearing loss may disrupt collaborative support structures that couples (and other intimate communicative partners) hone over decades together. We discuss the possibility that, cut off from the social world that scaffolds them, hearing loss may place older adults at greater risk of cognitive decline and dementia.

In this interview Charles (Chuck) GOODWIN not only reflects on his academic career, but also gives a fascinating and profound insight into the genesis of his own theoretical approach. On the one hand it becomes apparent that he and his spouse, Marjorie Harness GOODWIN, are among the few people who have contributed to the development of several approaches that now belong to the established canon of sociology. On the other hand GOODWIN allows a deep insight into the formation and background of a social-theoretical movement, more diverse and networked than currently visible. At the same time, he manages to introduce the more complex assumptions of his research results and theoretical conclusions. He thereby draws a line from his early work in the 1970s to this day—starting in the context of people like Gregory BATESON; working with people like Erving GOFFMAN, Gail JEFFERSON, Harvey SACKS, William LABOV and many more. It shows the creativity and openness, with which Charles GOODWIN was able to overcome the divide between theoretical schools and to thereby develop a genuine approach. In the early 1970s he already had succeeded in illuminating areas that could hardly be more topical today.