Distributed Cognition

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Distributed Cognition

• Sara Mitchell

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Statement
Agree
Disagree
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Microsoft is smart for wanting to take over Yahoo.
Agree
Disagree
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Intelligence comes from being able to create
cognitive artifacts that help us - Marcia Lee
Agree
Disagree
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The difference between epistemic and pragmatic
actions is clear.
Agree
Disagree
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Pragmatic actions (if possible) are always
superior than epistemic Chen Wu
Agree
Disagree
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Roman numerals way easier.
Agree
Disagree
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• Theme Representation makes a difference
• language, imagery in advertising
• selling your house
• dressing for an interview
• informational displays
• interfaces
• solving a problem simply means representing it
  so as to make the solution transparent (Simon
  153).

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Slides from Professor Boroditsky
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The Power of Representation Donald Norman The
powers of cognition come from abstraction and
representation for if the representation and the
processes are just right, then new experiences,
insights, and creations can emerge.
Cognitive artifacts constructed device to
support external representations a
representation of a representation Experiential
artifacts provide ways to experience and act on
the world Reflective artifacts provide ways to
modify and act on representations Examples where
how information is displayed makes a problem
easier/more difficult. With the appropriate
choice of representation, hard tasks become easy
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On Distinguishing Epistemic from Pragmatic
Action David Kirsh and Paul Maglio What
actions can an agent perform that will make the
task more manageable, easier to compute?
Epistemic actions physical actions that make
mental computation easier, faster, or more
reliable Pragmatic actions primary function to
bring the agent closer to the physical
goal Exemplified in Tetris translate-to-wall
and rotate to save mental rotation, among
others.
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• What are some of the dangers of abstraction and
  of choosing a representation? Jae min John,
  Brett Miller

• Does the concept of epistemic action extend to
  beyond a game and into the real world? Robert
  Travis
• Are epistemic actions easier for the more
  expert user? Amal Aziz
• Are there limits to experiential
  representations? Marcia Lee
• Why do we have so many bad representations?
  Neema Moraveji, Greg Schwartz
• What might be some drawbacks of designing to
  reduce the users cognitive load? Do you give
  anything up?

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• Norman states that a good representation
  captures the essential elements of an event and
  leaves out everything else. Suchman claims that
  actions are highly context specific. Antonio
  Ricciardi
• How can we understand this apparent
  contradiction?
• Prototyping epistemic or pragmatic? Yeonsoo
  Yang
• How do we build representations differently for
  humans versus machines? Mike Krieger, Chen Wu
• Can representations affect ones beliefs in
  ways that are external to the representation
  itself? - Loren Yu
• Kirsh and Maglio put emphasis on reflective
  action while Norman puts more emphasis on
  experiential. Nick Briggs
• Epistemic actions help us think.. Norman suggests
  the less thinking the easier we have it.
  Thoughts?

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• What are some things you do in your own life to
  reduce your cognitive load?
• Was that effective for the peoples task, not
  for mine? Yeonsoo Yang, Jason Robinson
• Can we design to support how multiple people
  think? Do people think in the same way?
• Are there advantages to choosing one form of
  representation over another (experiential,
  reflective)? Amal Aziz
• Are there advantages to using multiple
  experiential and reflective representations?
  Yeonsoo Yang
• What would be some ways in which we could
  evaluate whether a certain representation is the
  right one for the problem? - William Choi

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How can we design to reduce the users cognitive
load? Can we represent our own research data
differently to help us understand it better? )