COGS100 Macquarie Distributed Cognition in the public Paper -PLEASE FOLLOW ALL THE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY -The chosen activity for the prompt “Putting Ike

COGS100 Macquarie Distributed Cognition in the public Paper -PLEASE FOLLOW ALL THE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY

-The chosen activity for the prompt “Putting Ikea furniture together” or “Playing a game of 21 with a group of friends”

– I attached below all the necessary documents.

-The prompt will ask for 2 in class readings which I also attached below.

-You will find the prompt, the guidelines, the instructions, syllabus, and grading rubric.

-Again please follow all the instructions carefully. COGS 100, SPRING 19 — Assignment 2
Describe and analyze a distributed cognitive system
DUE BEFORE 11PM ON Thurs 5/23: completed in pairs (2 people max) or individually
Submit via Canvas (TurnitIn). No late submissions, no exceptions.
WHAT YOU’LL TURN IN
A 3-5 page paper synthesizing research insights based on course readings and lectures
WHAT YOU’LL WRITE ABOUT
1. Describe an existing ​human activity system​ that is an example of distributed
cognition occuring “in the wild”—look for humans interacting with others + world
2. Explain the relevance and consequences of the ​unit of analysis​ in this context
3. Detail the ​emergent properties​ that arise from relevant interactions
4. Apply the ​DCOG framework​ to a thoughtful analysis of the system
5. Explicate the c
​ ognitive accomplishment(s)​ of the system
6. Elaborate the importance of the s
​ ocial and cultural ​elements
7. Reflect on and ​draw connections to larger course themes​ of humans as cyborgs
ASSIGNMENT REQUIREMENTS
1. Demonstrate a clear understanding of DCOG concepts: unit of analysis, emergence,
cognitive accomplishment, division of cognitive labor, coordination of parts,
propagation of representations, temporal distribution, social and cultural distribution
2. Thoughtfully and thoroughly discuss the relationships between these concepts, and
directly relate them to your analysis in an insightful and meaningful way
3. Practice critical thinking to discuss how your analysis addresses the prompts, using
citation-based evidence to support your claims, arguments, and insights
4. Write a coherent and concise paper that satisfies all assigned requirements
5. You m
​ ust include ​an annotated visual/spatial representation (photo, sketch, diagram,
etc.) of your chosen activity system. This does not contribute towards the page length
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS CAN BE FOUND ON PAGE 2
1
COGS 100, SPRING 19 — Assignment 2
ASSIGNMENT GUIDELINES
1. You are not allowed to utilize any specific examples from lecture or the readings as
the basis for your assignment—you must identify and analyze your own example
2. You are not allowed to use an airline cockpit or ship’s navigation crew/system as an
existing example of a DCOG human activity system (covered extensively by Hutchins)
3. Don’t be afraid to be creative and to engage critically with the ideas you have been
exposed to in the class, but make sure that you are careful and deliberate in how you
approach the prompts, and especially in how you tie them together
4. You are strongly encouraged to seek out an observable, ongoing activity system that
you write about. Your direct observation and documentation of details (via notes,
photos, diagrams, etc.) will greatly improve your execution of the assignment
CITATION REQUIREMENTS AND FORMATTING
● You must cite a minimum of two (2) assigned readings from weeks 6, 7, and 8
● You must cite a minimum of one (1) thoughtfully chosen, relevant external source
● You must use APA formatting (see owl.english.purdue.edu for a style guide) for both
in-text citations as well as list of references—be consistent
● No shallow citations. If you cite a source, demonstrate its relevance and
importance on the slide in enough detail to demonstrate a clear connection.
DOCUMENT SPECIFICATIONS
● Length​: 3(min) to 5(max) pages, double spaced, 12 pt typeface, standard margins
● Title​: no title page or abstract is required or encouraged, but please give your paper a
title (and full author names) at the top of the document
● Sections/headings​: you are encouraged to use appropriate sections and heading to
structure your document and provide context for the reader
2
COGS 100, SPRING 19 — Assignment 2
Describe and analyze a distributed cognitive system
EXPANDED WRITING PROMPT WITH GUIDING QUESTIONS
Your paper should address all of the following prompts. We have provided ~2 example questions as
guidance and inspiration for how you might approach each one. These questions are a good starting
point, but you are encouraged to expand on or reframe them as you see fit during your progress on the
assignment. You are not required to answer each question in turn, and they are meant to spark your
thinking—not be a recipe you follow. Also remember that connecting the ideas from each prompt is
especially important. The prompts are presented in the suggested ordering, but they may be
re-ordered if you feel it would better serve the presentation of your ideas.
Writing Prompt:
1. Describe an existing ​human activity system​ that is an example of distributed cognition
occuring “in the wild”
a. Hint: go beyond simply stating what the system is. Actually *describe* it.
b. What are the parts of the system (human, internal, external, material, artifactual, etc.)
and what is the context of activity?
c. How and why do you consider this to be an example of a distributed cognitive system
that is appropriate for the assignment/your analysis? (might be in conclusion, or intro)
2. Explain the relevance and consequences of the ​unit of analysis​ in this context
a. Why is this an appropriate unit of analysis for the activity system you have chosen vs.
some other unit of analysis?
b. What type(s) of questions/analysis does this unit of analysis allow for that another level
might not?
c. What is left out? Why does it matter?
3. Detail the ​emergent properties​ that arise from relevant interactions
a. Are these properties specific and unique to a certain level or boundary of a
sub/super-system?
b. Why can’t the emergent property be accounted for by looking only at the property of
those interacting parts it emerged from? I.e. what makes it strictly emergent?
4. Apply the ​DCOG framework​ to a thoughtful analysis of the system
a. How is each feature present in your activity system, and what are the implications of
how it manifests for your analysis?
b. Are there any features you don’t see as present/important? Why?
c. What are the meaningful interactions between the features of the framework?
5. Explicate the c
​ ognitive accomplishment(s)​ of the system
a. Beyond a high-level statement of what the system “accomplishes”, what is uniquely
cognitive about it and why?
b. Is this accomplishment something that can only be accounted for by looking at this
activity system at this unit of analysis and as a distributed system? Why or why not?
6. Elaborate the importance of the s
​ ocial and cultural ​elements
a. What are the specific ways that the cognitive accomplishment is related to social or
cultural structures?
b. Is your analysis separable from the sociocultural elements, or wholly dependent on
them? Why or why not?
c. Do you think your activity system is an example of cognition that is mediated in culture,
or a way that culture can be seen as a form of cognition? Why?
7. Reflect on and d
​ raw connections to larger course themes​ of humans as cyborgs
a. You’re on your own on this one…but have fun with it and be creative!
their behavior indirectly through language and artificial signs produced the same kinds of remedial effects.
Subsequently this “remediation” strategy was used in a wide variety of studies of the development of higher psychological functions
both in children and in adults who were injured in some way. For example, Luria (1929/1978) studied the development of writing as a way
of overcoming heavy demands on memory, Leont’ev (1981) studied the
development of the use of mnemonic devices in normal and retarded
children, Maniulenko (1948/1975) studied the way in which play can
reorganize memory and motor functions, while many investigators
including Leont’ev, Luria, and Zaporozhets developed remediational
techniques to deal with injury cases in which speech, memory, and
motor functions had been destroyed.
Summing up this early theorizing, we can see that the Russians
took seriously Wundt’s distinction between two kinds of psychology
and accepted the notion that the study of higher psychological functions must be approached by a distinct methodology. However, unlike
Wundt, who claimed that the two psychologies were necessarily distinct, they aspired to create a unified psychology with cultural mediation, and hence the assumption that cognition is a distributed
phenomenon, at its core.
Using cultural-historical psychology to think about
distribution of mind
After the 1950s, a number of publications of the culturalhistorical school began to appear in English, German, and other
languages. There were, naturally enough, varied, selective interpretations of these ideas when they were taken out of the Russian context
(for better or for worse – see Valsiner, 1988, for both an accessible
summary of main lines of research and a trenchant critique of U.S.
versions of cultural-historical scholarship). Consequently, all we can
offer is “a” cultural-historical approach to the problem at hand.
Our own view is that several productive expansions of culturalhistorical psychology have grown out of the U.S. and European hybrids of Russian approaches. We will explore these expansion in two
ways. First, using the representation of mediated activity in Figures
1.1 through 1.3 as a heuristic device, we will sketch various ways in
which cognition can be said to be distributed in different fundamen- tal
loci of an activity system. Then we will provide two examples from our
own research that exploit these ideas.
Distribution of cognition “in” the person
One must keep in mind that knowledge and forms of thought
are not uniformly distributed in the brain, as Luria never tired of saying. Luria’s remediational procedures were based on methods that
deliberately redistributed cognition depending on the particular brain
deficit afflicting a patient (Luria, 1973).
In a passage that clearly indicates his acceptance of Wundt’s dual
psychology, Luria makes explicit his belief in an extrasomatic distribution of cognition:
The chasm between natural scientific explanations of elementary processes and
mentalist descriptions of complex processes could not be bridged until we could discover the way natural processes such as physical maturation and sensory mechanisms
become intertwined with culturally determined processes to produce the psycholog- ical
functions of adults. We needed, as it were, to step outside the organism to dis- cover
the specifically human forms of psychological activity. (Luria, 1979, p. 43)
His point has been made quite markedly by contemporary neuroscientists (e.g., Edelman, 1987) who urge on us the recognition that
which parts of the brain are engaged in what way in getting through a
particular event depends critically on the cultural constitution of that
event. Experiencing a Chopin scherzo and experiencing a Chagall
painting give rise to very different patterns of brain activity, and both
differ crucially from an experience like giving birth to a child. The
heterogeneity of activity within the brain is conditioned in part by the
structure of the events, in both their sensual and symbolic aspects, in
which the person is participating.
Distribution “in” the medium culture
Not surprisingly, since culture is their foundational concept,
anthropologists have made a major contribution to our understanding of
both the universal process of culturally mediated cognition and the
various ways in which the heterogeneity of culture supports and requires the distribution of cognition.
The basic sense in which cultural mediation implies the distribution of cognition was emphasized by Gregory Bateson, who proposed the
following thought experiment:
Suppose I am a blind man, and I use a stick. I go tap, tap, tap. Where do I start? Is my
mental system bounded at the hand of the stick? Is it bounded by my skin? Does it start
halfway up the stick? Does it start at the tip of the stick? (1972, p. 459)
Bateson goes on to argue that the answer to the question changes
depending on how the event is conceived. Analysis of mind’s focus
must include not only the man and his stick, but his purposes and the
environment in which he finds himself. When the man sits down to
eat his lunch, the stick’s relation ·to mind totally changes, and it is
forks and knives, not sticks, that become relevant. In short, the ways in
which mind is distributed depend crucially on the tools through
which one interacts with the world, and these in turn depend on one’s
goals. The combination of goals, tools, and setting (or perhaps “arena,”
in Lave’s, 1988, terminology) constitutes simultaneously the context of
behavior and the ways in which cognition can be said to be distributed
in that context.
The notion that mediation of activity through artifacts implies a
distribution of cognition among individual, mediator, and environment, as well as the fundamental change wrought by artifactmediated activity, is eloquently expressed by two otherwise very
different anthropologists, Leslie White and Clifford Geertz. Writing
about the nature of the discontinuity between Homo sapiens and its
near phylogenetic neighbors, White (1942) wrote:
Man differs from the apes, and indeed all other living creatures so far as we know, in
that he is capable of symbolic behavior. With words man creates a new world, a world of
ideas and philosophies. In this world man lives just as truly as in the physical world of
his senses….This world comes to have a continuity and a permanence that the
external world of the senses can never have. It is not made up of present only but of a
past and a future as well. Temporally, it is not a succession of disconnected episodes, but a continuum extending to infinity in both directions, from eternity to eternity. (p. 372)
·
Among other properties White here attributes to culture, his
emphasis on the way it creates an (artificial) continuity between past
and future merits special attention, as we will attempt to show a little
later. It is also significant that both White and the Russian
cultural-historical psychologists (e.g., Vygotsky, 1934/1987) emphasize that, as mediators of human action, all artifacts can be considered tools and symbols. As White (1959) expressed the relationship:
An axe has a subjective component; it would be meaningless without a concept and an
attitude. On the other hand, a concept or attitude would be meaningless without overt
expression, in behavior or speech (which is a form of behavior). Every cultural element,
every cultural trait, therefore, has a subjective and an objective aspect. (p. 236)
What White refers to as the “subjective aspect” of artifacts should be
thought of in the context of this discussion as the cognitive residue of
prior actions crystallized in the object.
It is to Clifford Geertz that we owe some of the most explicit statements of both the distributed nature of mind and the interpenetration of
the cultural-historical and phylogenetic aspects of human cogni- tion.
He argued, on the basis of the archaeological and paleolithic ev- idence,
that “culture, rather than being added on, so to speak, to a finished
or virtually finished animal, was ingredient, and centrally in- gredient,
in the production of that animal itself” (Geertz, 1973, p. 47). In
words that echo strongly the ideas of the founders of the culturalhistorical school in Russia, Geertz went on to write:
By submitting himself to governance by symbolically mediated programs for producing artifacts, organizing social life, or expressing emotions, man determined, if unwittingly, the culminating states of his own biological destiny. Quite literally, although
quite inadvertently, he created himself. (p. 48)
Such symbols are thus not mere expressions, instrumentalities, or correlates of our
biological, psychological, and social existence; they are prerequisites of it. Without
men, no culture, certainly; but equally, and more significantly, without culture, no
·
men. (p. 49)
Patterning of culturally distributed cognition
There is a tendency in some anthropological circles to think of
culture as a uniform, patterned ensemble of beliefs, values, sym- bols,
tools, and so on that people share. This “configurational” ap- proach
is greatly influenced by the work of Franz Boas and his students in
anthropology (see Bock, 1988, or Stocking, 1968, for an excellent
summary of Boas’s work) as well as by the cross-cultural
psychologists who study “cognitive style” (Berry, 1976).
There is no doubt that culture is patterned, but there is also no
doubt that it is far from uniform, because it is experienced in local,
face-to-face interactions that are locally constrained and, hence, heterogeneous with respect to both “culture as a whole” and the parts of
the entire cultural toolkit experienced by any given individual. This
point has been emphasized by Ted Schwartz (1978, 1990), who explores the way in which knowledge is distributed differentially across
persons, generations, occupations, classes, religions, institutions, and
so on. Schwartz argues that culture is necessarily a distributed phenomenon insofar as it is brought to bear, and acquired, in everyday
interactions among people, no two of whom share all of the culture of
the group to which they belong. (Note that even the notion of group
must be left underspecified, because it could refer to a group of children who have gone to the same summer camp, or to all of the people
living in a particular place at a particular time speaking the same language, or to all of the residents of a large, modem, multiethnic, national state.)
This distributed view of culture, like the distributed view of brain
processing espoused by the early Russian cultural-historical psychologists, also requires us to “step outside” a category boundary (in this
case, culture rather than the brain) in order to specify how culture/
cognition is distributed. For example, some of the commonality to be
found in the schema/word meanings of a culture arises .because of
shared phylogenetic structure of human brains evolved under common environmental circumstances, while some of it arises from joint
activity subordinated to phylogenetically underspecified, but historically accumulated cultural constraints (Boster, 1991). A distributed
notion of culture also requires one to think about how cognition is
distributed among people by virtue of their social roles (which, again,
are both phylogenetically and culturally constrained). As Fussell and
Krauss (1989) clearly demonstrate, part of one’s cultural knowledge is
knowledge about the extent to which others are likely to share one’s
knowledge and cognitive perspective. Hence, the social distribution of
cognition both adds to, and subtracts from, the degree of common
culture mediating any particular interaction.
While it may readily be agreed that culture is not a seamless configuration and that knowledge is distributed among people within a
cultural group, it is still important to specify the units in terms of
which cultural structuration operates. In one well-known formulation,
Geertz (1973) proposed that “culture is best seen not as complexes of
concrete behavior patterns – customs, usages, traditions, habit clusters – …but as a set of control mechanisms – plans, recipes, rules,
instructions (what computer engineers call ‘programs’)- for governing behavior” (p. 44). Significantly (since these mechanisms might
seem to be located entirely inside people’s heads and therefore entirely ideal) Geertz goes on to write in a manner that links up nearly
with the notion of artifact mediation central to the cultural-historical
approach:
The “control mechanism” view of culture begins with the assumption that human
thought is basically both social and public – that its natural habitat is the house yard,
the marketplace, and the town square. Thinking consists not of “happenings in the
head” (though happenings there and elsewhere are necessary for it to occur) but of
traffic in what have been called, by G. H. Mead …
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