Study questions 729G12
General questions to articles and chapters

What are the most important conclusions the author or the authors (AAs) want
to make with the text?

Do AAs draw any theoretical conclusions about cognition in general, if so,
which?

Do AAs draw any theoretical conclusions about a particular kind of cognition, if
so which?

Do AAs argue that cognition is situated, distributed or embodied? Do AAs
think that all cognition is situated/distributed/embodied?

Do you see any reason that AAs commit to a particular theoretical
perspective? Do you think there is any other theoretical concept or perspective
other than the one AAs commit to that would be just as good at describing
what AAs want to describe? Why?

Which unit of analysis do AAs think is the right one for cognition, or the right
one for what AAs want to explain and investigate? Which arguments and/or
empirical findings do they use to arrive to their position?

Cognition can be viewed on the different levels and can for example be seen as
an: (a) individual internal, (b) individual external, (c) social, and (d) cultural
process. Describe the theoretical perspectives in this course, and perspectives in
some other courses in terms of these concepts? (all lectures and seminars)
Lecture 2
Situated cognition is introduced and discussed in several places in the course literature: Mainly Garbis
in Chapter 3 and both articles by Kirsh, but also partly in Garbis Chapter 4.
1.
What is meant by that cognition is "in situ"? As described in Garbis, what is the
empirical material that Suchman has for saying that problem-solving is always
“in situ”? Do you think that problem-solving is always “in situ”? (lecture 2)
2.
Based on what Garbis writes, what is meant with context? (lecture 2)
3.
What does Garbis mean with "situated cognition emphasizes the social
organization and distribution of cognition over mind, activity, and cultural
setting" (Garbis, p.39)? (lecture 2)
4.
Garbis gives an example of what is meant by the “interpretive view” in situated
cognition. What other examples can you see within your own or other people's
everyday life? (lecture 2)
5.
What criticism is there against situated cognition? Who is critical? (lecture 2)
6.
Garbis describes Hutchins three-level framework. Can you briefly describe and
give examples of the empirical material that you would need to do an analysis
according to this framework? (lecture 2)
7.
How can we as researchers or investigators by having a distributed approach to
cognition say that we literally "step into" cognitive processes? (lecture 2)
8.
Garbis describes that many have criticized distributed cognition for not having
something new to offer theories of cognition. What arguments are there for
such position? Do you agree with this position? (lecture 2)
9.
Hollan, Hutchins and Kirsh, as Hutchins in Chapter 9 of Cognition in the Wild
propose a methodological agenda for cognitive science. Describe this agenda.
What challenges do you see with this agenda? (lecture 2)
10.
What is an emergent phenomenon? Garbis presents an example (p.45). Give
another example. (lecture 2)
11.
In chapter 2 Garbis talks about ill-structured and ill-defined problems in
professional technical environments. Give examples of ill-structured and illdefined problem from your own or others' everyday life. Give also examples of
structured and defined problems from your own or others' everyday life.
(lecture 2)
12.
In 5.1.2 Garbis discuss the unit of analysis for his studies. How does he solve
the issue of choosing a unit of analysis? In what other ways could he have
solved it? (lecture 2)
13.
What do you think are the main similarities and differences between situated
cognition and distributed cognition (according to Hutchins)? (mostly lecture 2
and 6)
Lecture 3
14.
Kirsh talks about space as a “resource” to be exploited by experts. What other
resources can you think of during cognitive processing and problem-solving?
Can you think of any way these different resources can complement each other?
(lecture 3)
15.
Why is the traditional division between “planning” and “action” not so clear-cut
according to Kirsh? (lecture 3)
16.
Kirsh writes: “The fewer degrees of freedom an agent has the simpler its
task…Ultimate simplicity comes when there is only one degree of
freedom…the outcome is ballistically determined.” What does Kirsh mean by
that, and how may that be relevant to an interaction designer? (lecture 3)
17.
What is the difference between epistemic actions and pragmatic actions?
(lecture 3)
18.
Are all actions in a problem-solving situation either epistemic or pragmatic? Can
an action be both at the same time? Why or why not? (lecture 3)
Lecture 4
19.
Anderson mentions one example of cognitivist thinking, rooted in good-oldfashioned AI, which is the CYC-project. In what way is CYC a product of
cognitivism? (lecture 4)
20.
In order to understand cognition, why is it helpful to “recall our evolutionary
lineage”? (lecture 4)
21.
John Searle created the Chinese Room thought experiment to show that
symbols are just symbols and devoid of semantics. Words do not mean anything
just by having syntax. In section 3, Anderson writes quite lengthy about how
words and concepts may get their meaning. How? (lecture 4, seminar 1)
22.
How does Garbis (chapter 2) describe the term "coupling"? (lecture 4)
23.
What do you think are the main similarities and differences between situated
cognition and embodied cognition? (mostly lecture 4)
24.
Anderson provide a passage from Rodney Brooks who famously reasoned that
“…When we examine very simple level intelligence we find that explicit
representations and models of the world simply get in the way. It turns out to
be better to use the world as its own model.” What does he mean by that? And
what other theoretical perspective or perspectives on the course have made
similar claims about cognition? Explain in what way. (lecture 4)
Seminar 1
25.
In the article by Beilock & Goodwin, why did they do a second experiment?
(seminar 1)
26.
In the same article, how could the authors exclude Tulving’s ”encoding
specificity”-principle as an explanation to their results (seminar 1)
Seminar 2
27.
What does Charles Goodwin mean by professional vision? Give examples of
aspects of this professional vision? (seminar 2)
28.
Goodwin writes “All vision is perspectival and lodged within endogenous
communities of practice" (p. 606). Describe in your own words what he means
by that? (seminar 2)
29.
Goodwin writes, "...the power to authoritatively see and produce the range of
phenomena that are consequential for the organization of a society is not
homogeneously distributed" (s. 626). Describe in your own words what he
means by that? (seminar 2)
Lecture 5
Activity Theory is introduced and discussed in several places in the literature: Garbis Chapters 3 and
4, and the article of Kaptelinin et al.
30.
What is meant with "cognition as something ontologically situated within the
social and cultural context" (Garbis, p.39)? (lecture 5)
31.
Explain the basic concepts of the activity triangle. Describe also the principles
for the hierarchical structure for activities. What is the relationship between the
activity triangle and the hierarchical structure of activities that Garbis and
Kaptelinin et al. describes? (lecture 5)
32.
Mediation gets an extended meaning in Engeströms version of the activity
triangle. Describe this extended meaning. (lecture 5)
33.
Activity Theory presents an alternative to innate mental abilities. Describe this
alternative. (lecture 5)
34.
Why do you think that Activity Theory has become so popular within HCI?
(lecture 5)
35.
What is the difference between “object-orientedness”, as described in the article
by Kaptelinin et al. and “object” in the activity triangle, as described in Garbis?
(lecture 5)
36.
Why is it too simple to say that internalization is the process when something
outside the individual moves to the inside of the same individual? (lecture 5)
37.
As described by Garbis, Nardi and Kaptelinin are critical against distributed
cognition. What is the content of this critic? Garbis rejects this criticism of
distributed cognition as described by Hutchins. What are his counterarguments?
(lecture 5)
Different theories of cognitive artifacts are discussed mainly in Garbis Chapter 4 and the book of
Norman, but also in the article by Clark and Chalmers.
38.
Describe Norman's personal view and his system view of cognitive artifacts.
(lecture 5)
39.
How can we say, as Norman, that cognitive artifacts are extensions of humans?
(lecture 5)
40.
What is meant with the concept of “amplification” of cognitive abilities?
For what reasons is it misleading to say that cognitive artifacts amplify cognitive
abilities? (See Garbis chapter 4 for arguments and Norman, Chapter 4 and 5 for
examples) (lecture 5)
41.
As described in Garbis both Simon and Norman describe how cognitive
artifacts can transform the cognitive task in a way that makes the solution to a
problem transparent. Compare this description in Garbis with several of the
examples in Norman (1993) that show that cognitive artifacts also can do the
opposite. (lecture 5)
42.
What advantages and disadvantages are there of that Norman's personal view
only focuses on the cognitive task? (lecture 5)
43.
What advantages and disadvantages are there to a strict division between
internal and external representations? (lecture 4, 5, & 6)
44.
In Norman and Zhang's description of cognitive artifacts and Norman's
definition of cognitive artifacts external representation play an important role.
Can you come up with other external structures that humans use to think that
do not hold external representations? Which ones? (lecture 5)
45.
Why can Personal Plus be viewed as a functional perspective? What problem or
problems are there with the functional perspective that is described by
Perkins? Do you see any another functional theoretical perspective on the
course that handle this or these problem(s)? (lecture 5)
46.
How different, according to Garbis, is Hutchins view of cognitive artifacts
compared to Norman? (lecture 5)
47.
Why can we say, according to activity theory that cognitive artifacts directly
control behavior? (lecture 5)
48.
Why can we say that language is a determinant for individual cognition? Why
can we say that language is a determinant for distributed cognition? (lecture 5)
49.
What does activity theory mean by that cognitive artifacts is only mediating
tools? What are they mediating for? (lecture 5)
50.
What is meant by that cognitive artifacts cannot be seen as carriers of semantic
content (Garbis, Section 4.6) and what consequences will this have for the
modeling of cognition as distributed? What methodological consequences
follow from this conclusion? Compare this with the continuation of the course
and why we need (cognitive) ethnography to understand distributed and
situated cognition. (lecture 5)
51.
What do you think are the main similarities and differences between situated
cognition and activity theory? (lecture 5)
52.
What do you think are the main similarities and differences between activity
theory and distributed cognition (according to Hutchins)? (mostly lecture 5)
53.
Garbis writes that an analysis according to distributed cognition usually starts
with locating and describing the goal of the cognitive system. How do
proponents of distributed cognition usually go about finding the goal? What can
we learn from a situated cognitive perspective and activity theory about finding
and locating the goals in cognitive systems? (lecture 5)
54.
How does distributed cognition according to Hutchins describe the concept of
internalization? Compare this with the description according to activity theory
in Kaptelinin, Nardi, and Macaulay (1999). What differences and similarities do
you see? (lecture 5)
55.
In the last section of Chapter 4 Garbis describes distributed cognition as a
system perspective and activity theory as a functional perspective. What is here
meant with a system and a functional perspective? (lecture 5)
56.
Describe the concept of mediation within activity theory. Describe also the
concept of mediation in distributed cognition, and compare these descriptions.
Do you think that these concepts are equivalent? If not, what impacts will this
difference have for the study of cognition within each perspective? (lecture 5)
Lecture 6
Distributed cognition is described and discussed in several places in the literature: Garbis Chapters 2,
3 and 4, the texts including Hutchins as author, as well as the article by Clark and Chalmers.
57.
Is distributed cognition according to Hutchins a kind of cognition? If so what
kind? If not, what is it otherwise? (lecture 6)
58.
What does the system perspective mean within distributed cognition according
to Hutchins, and in what way is distributed cognition according to Garbis more
than just saying that the unit of analysis should be extended? What does this
mean for the study of cognition? (lecture 6)
59.
What does it mean to say that cognition can be distributed over time? What is
the positive consequences for humanity that cognition is distributed over time?
(lecture 6)
60.
Describe Hutchins (Chapter 9 in Cognition in the wild) reinterpretation of the
history of cognitive science. How does he for instance interpret the Chinese
room? What consequences as described by Hutchins follow his conclusion from
his reinterpretation of the history of cognitive science? (lecture 6)
61.
What differences are there between the use of representation and symbols in
distributed cognition as described by Hutchins and traditional cognitive
perspectives? What connections are there between the PSS-hypothesis and
Hutchins navigational bridge and airplane cockpit (Chapter 9, cognition in the
wild and Hutchins article How a cockpit remembers its speed)? (lecture 6)
62.
In the description by Hutchins interpretation of the Chinese room (see Garbis
and Chapter 9 in Hutchins Cognition in the Wild) the concept of
cognitive properties are used. What cognitive properties are there that are not
the same for the parts in the Chinese room as for the whole room? Give
examples of such properties from Hutchins article “How a cockpit remembers
its speed” and your own or other people’s everyday life. (lecture 6)
63.
Give concrete examples on how to get different cognitive properties in two
groups (teams) of people performing some task despite keeping individuals’
cognitive properties equivalent between the groups. (lecture 6)
64.
What is it that Hutchins (Chapter 9 of cognition in the wild) criticizes many
anthropologists for having done? And what division of labor between
psychologists and anthropologists did D'Andrade (1981) propose? Can you see
any methodological consequences of such division? (lecture 6)
65.
What is culture according to Hutchins? What consequences does Hutchins see
from neglecting culture in the description of cognition? (lecture 6)
66.
What do you think are the main similarities and differences between embodied
cognition and distributed cognition (according to Hutchins)? (mostly lecture 6)
67.
Towards the end of Chapter 9 of Cognition in the Wild (s.371) Hutchins
describes his perspective as a perspective that strive for a functional description
of cognitive systems. How does that work with Garbis description of
distributed cognition as a system perspective? (lecture 6)
Seminar 3
68.
What similarities and differences do you see comparing Hutchins distributed
cognition and Clark & Chalmers Extended Mind-hypothesis? (seminar 3)
69.
What similarities and differences between Perkins Personal Plus and the
Extended Mind hypothesis that is presented by Clark and Chalmers (1998) can
you see? (lecture 5, seminar 3)
Future
70.
In chapter 2 Garbis discuss centers of coordination. Describe the (cognitive)
characteristics that Garbis describe that parts of the system (the humans, the
artifacts and the processes) have in a center of coordination. (future courses)
71.
How does Garbis (chapter 2) describe the term “complexity”? (future courses)