Relating Mental Activity to Cognition

Relating Mental Activity to Cognition

Edwin Hutchins, Cognition_in_the_Wild

Ship navigation involves lots of numbers . Numbers have to be processed in order to find out where the ship is and especially to determine where it will be. It is easy to assume that navigators must be good at arithmetic . When I looked closely at the practice of navigation , however , I found the navigators engaged in very few arithmetic tasks. How can that be?

 It must be evident by now that the computations performed by the navigation system are not equivalent to the cognitive tasks facing the individual members of the navigation team. It is possible to describe the computations performed by the navigation team without recourse to the cognitive abilities or activities of the individual members of the team.

The navigation system combines one-dimensional constraints to fix a ship's position . The members of the navigation team read scales and translate spoken representations into written ones. The navigation system computes distance from rate and time , while the members of the team imagine four –digit numbers as two -digit numbers .

The computations that are performed by the navigation system are a side effect of the  cognitive activity of the members of the navigation team. The tools of the trade both define the tasks that are faced by the navigators and, in their operation , actually carry out the computations .

As we have seen, the very same computation can be implemented many ways, each implementation placing vastly different cognitive demands on the task performer .

I argued above that the naive notion of these tools as amplifiers of cognitive activity was mistaken . Is a written procedure an amplifier of memory ? Not if the task performer never knew the procedure .

Then , and always , the functional system that performs the task is a constellation of structured representational media that are brought into coordination with one another .

These tools permit us to transform difficult tasks into ones that can be done by pattern matching , by the manipulation of simple physical systems, or by mental simulations of manipulations of simple physical systems. These tools are useful precisely because the cognitive processes required to manipulate them are not the computational processes accomplished by their manipulation . The computational constituents of the problem have been built into the physical structure of the tools .

Muhakeme Sisteminin İçine Doğru

Muhakeme Sisteminin İçine Doğru

Stepping Inside the Cognitive System

Edwin Hutchins, Cognition_in_the_Wild

Navigasyonun temel hesaplamaları hesabi, temsili / algoritmik, ve uygulamasal seviyelerde gözlenebilen temsil nesneleri  cinsinden tümüyle belirlenebilir.

The basic computations of navigation could be characterized at the computational , representational / algorithmic , and implementational levels entirely in terms of observable representations .

Muhakemesel sisteme bu açıdan bakarken, aktörler arasındaki iletişim muhakeme sistemine ait içsel işlem süreçleri olarak görülür.

On this view of cognitive systems, communication among the actors is seen as a process internal to the cognitive system.

Diagramlar ve haritalar gibi, işlemsel ortam unsurları, sistemin içinde yer alan temsil nesneleri olarak görülür, ve onlar üzerinde yürütülen işlemler az çok sistem dahilinde işlem süreçleri olarak görülür.

Computational media , such as diagrams and charts , are seen as representations internal to the system, and the computations carried out upon them are more processes internal to the system.

Muhakemesel faaliyet sosyal ağ üzerinde dağıtılmış olduğundan bu içsel işlem süreçlerinin bir çoğu ve dahili iletişimler doğrudan gözlenebilir.

Because the cognitive activity is distributed across a social network , many of these internal processes and internal communications are directly observable.

Sosyal dağıtılmış sistemlerle, muhakemesel sistemin içine doğru bir adım atabiliriz, ve altta yer alan bazı işlem süreçleri (insanların kafaları içindeki) belirsiz kalsa da, iç organizasyon ve sistemin işleyişinin büyük bir kısmı doğrudan gözlenebilir.

With systems of socially distributed cognition we can step inside the cognitive system, and while some underlying processes (inside people's heads) remain obscured , a great deal of the internal organization and operation of the system is directly observable.

Stepping Inside the Cognitive System

Stepping Inside the Cognitive System

Edwin Hutchins, Cognition_in_the_Wild

The basic computations of navigation could be characterized at the computational , representational / algorithmic , and implementational levels entirely in terms of observable representations .

On this view of cognitive systems, communication among the actors is seen as a process internal to the cognitive system.

 Computational media , such as diagrams and charts , are seen as representations internal to the system, and the computations carried out upon them are more processes internal to the system.

Because the cognitive activity is distributed across a social network , many of these internal processes and internal communications are directly observable.

With systems of socially distributed cognition we can step inside the cognitive system, and while some underlying processes (inside people's heads) remain obscured , a great deal of the internal organization and operation of the system is directly observable.

Dağıtılmış Muhakeme nedir?

Dağıtılmış Muhakeme nedir?

What is distributed cognition?

Dağıtılmış Muhakeme bireysel muhakeme imkanlarını arttırmak için ya da bir bireysel elemanın tek başına başaramadığı  muhakeme imkanlarının insanlar arasında paylaşıldığı bir süreçtir.

Distributed cognition refers to a process in which cognitive resources are shared socially in order to

extend individual cognitive resources or to accomplish  something that an individual agent could not achieve alone.

İnsanın muhakemesel başarıları, bir elemanın muhakemesel süreçleri ile dünyadaki nesnelerin ve sınırlamaların karşılıklı olarak birbirlerini etkilediği bir sürece dayanır.

Human cognitive achievements are based on a process in which an agent's cognitive processes and the objects and constraints of the world reciprocally affect each other.

Muhakemesel süreçler insanlar ve makinalar arasında  veya muhakemesel elmanlar arasında(fiziksel olarak dağıtılmış muhakeme)  dağıtılabilir(sosyal olarak dağıtılmış muhakeme).

Cognitive processes can be distributed between humans and machines (physically distributed cognition, Norman, 1993; Perkins, 1993) or between cognitive agents (socially distributed cognition).

http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Distributed_cognition

What is distributed cognition

What is distributed cognition?

Distributed cognition refers to a process in which cognitive resources are shared socially in order to

extend individual cognitive resources or to accomplish  something that an individual agent could not achieve alone.

Human cognitive achievements are based on a process in which an agent's cognitive processes and the objects and constraints of the world reciprocally affect each other.

Cognitive processes can be distributed between humans and machines (physically distributed cognition, Norman, 1993; Perkins, 1993) or between cognitive agents (socially distributed cognition).

http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Distributed_cognition

Dağıtılmış Muhakeme ve Karıncalar nasıl Yön Bulur

Dağıtılmış Muhakeme ve Karıncalar nasıl Yön Bulur 

Distributed Cognition and how Ants Navigate

Edwin Hutchins, Cognition_in_the_Wild

Simon(1981) muhakeme için ortamın önemini vurgulayan bir ibret öyküsü sundu.  Kumsaldaki bir karıncanın karışık hareketlerini izlerken, izlenen patikayı oluştururmak için, karıncaya  karmaşık bir program atfettiğimizi  ileri sürdü.   Aslında, Simon’a göre,  izlenen yol karıncadan çok kumsal hakkında bize bilgi verir.

Simon (1981) offered a parable as a way of emphasizing the importance of the environment for cognition .

He argued that , as we watch the complicated movements of an ant on a beach, we may be tempted to attribute to the ant some complicated program for constructing the path taken. In fact, Simon says, that trajectory tells us more about the beach than about the ant.

İbret öyküsünü bir karınca toplumu ile bir kumsala ve hikayesine genişletmek isterim.  Psikologların yaptıkları gibi, bir tek karıncayı gözlemektense, birer antrapolog olalım ve bir karınca toplumunu haftalar ve aylar boyunca izleyelim.   Karıncalar için yasak bölge olan bir fırtınadan sonra sahile geldiğimizi kabul edelim.  Nesiller boyunca karıncalar kumsalı tararlar.  Arkalarında kısa ömürlü kimyasal işaretler bırakırlar, ve nereye giderlerse orada kum tanelerini istekleri dışında kımıldatırlar.  Aylar sonra, olası yiyecek  kaynaklarına giden patikalar gelişir, ilk önce kardeş karıncaların kısa ömürlü kimyasal artıklarını daha sonra yüklü karınca trafiği tarafından üretilen  uzun ömürlü yolları takip eden karıncalar tarafından...  

I would like to extend the parable to a beach with a community of ants and a history . Rather than watch a single ant for a few minutes , as psychologists are wont to do, let us be anthropologists and move in and watch a community of ants over weeks and months . Let us assume that we arrive just after a storm , when the beach is a tabula rasa for the ants. Generations of ants comb the beach. They leave behind them short -lived chemical trails , and where they go they inadvertently move grains of sand as they pass. Over months , paths to likely food sources develop as they are visited again and again by ants following first the short -lived chemical trails of their fellows and later the longer -lived roads produced by a history of heavy ant traffic .

After months of watching , we decide to follow a particular ant on an outing . We may be impressed by how cleverly it visits every high -likelihood food location . This ant seems to work so much more efficiently than did its ancestors of weeks ago. Is this a smart ant? Is it perhaps smarter than its ancestors? No, it is just the same dumb sort of ant, reacting to its environment in the same ways its ancestors did .

Fakat ortam aynı değildir.  Kültürel bir çevredir.  Karınca nesilleri kumsalda işaretlerini bırakmıştır, ve aptal bir karınca atalarının  hareketlerinden kalan artıklarla etkileşerek akıllıymış gibi görünür.

But the environment is not the same.   It is a cultural environment . Generations of ants have left their marks on the beach, and now a dumb ant has been made to appear smart through its simple interaction with the residua of the history of its ancestor's actions .

Simon açıkça haklıydı: karıncayı gözlerken, karıncanın  iç dünyası hakkından çok kumsal hakkında bilgi sahibi oluruz.  Ve ‘özgürce’ düşünen insanları gözleyerek, onların iç dünyasından çok onların düşünmek için kullandığı çevreleri hakkında bilgi öğreniyor olabiliriz.

Simon was obviously right : in watching the ant, we learn more about the beach than about what is inside the ant.   And in watching people thinking in the wild , we may be learning more about their

environment for thinking than about what is inside them . 

Bunun farkında oldukğumuz zaman, muhakeme hakkında burada bilgi toplayamayız diye, eşyaları toplayıp sahili terk etmemeliyiz.  İnsan düşünmesinin çevreleri ‘doğal’ çevreler değildir.  İçten içe yapaydır.

Having realized this , we should not pack up and leave the beach, concluding that we cannot learn about cognition here. The environments of human thinking are not " natural " environments . They are artificial through and through .

İnsanlar muhakeme güçlerini onları kullandıkları ortamları yaratak oluştururlar.  Şu ana kadar, çok azımız bu ortamları muhakemesel faaliyetlerin düzenleyicisi olarak, ciddi şekilde incelemek için zaman ayırmıştır, bu yüzden düşüncenin inşasında onların rolünü çok az tartabiliyoruz.

Humans create their cognitive powers by creating the environments in which they exercise those powers . At present, so few of us have taken the time to study these environments seriously as organizers of cognitive activity that we have little sense of their role in the construction of thought.

Distributed Cognition and how Ants Navigate

Distributed Cognition and how Ants Navigate

Edwin Hutchins, Cognition_in_the_Wild

Simon (1981) offered a parable as a way of emphasizing the importance of the environment for cognition . He argued that , as we watch the complicated movements of an ant on a beach, we may be tempted to attribute to the ant some complicated program for constructing the path taken. In fact, Simon says, that trajectory tells us more about the beach than about the ant.

 I would like to extend the parable to a beach with a community of ants and a history . Rather than watch a single ant for a few minutes , as psychologists are wont to do, let us be anthropologists and move in and watch a community of ants over weeks and months . Let us assume that we arrive just after a storm , when the beach is a tabula rasa for the ants. Generations of ants comb the beach. They leave behind them short -lived chemical trails , and where they go they inadvertently move grains of sand as they pass. Over months , paths to likely food sources develop as they are visited again and again by ants following first the short -lived chemical trails of their fellows and later the longer -lived roads produced by a history of heavy ant traffic .

After months of watching , we decide to follow a particular ant on an outing . We may be impressed by how cleverly it visits every high -likelihood food location . This ant seems to work so much more efficiently than did its ancestors of weeks ago. Is this a smart ant? Is it perhaps smarter than its ancestors? No, it is just the same dumb sort of ant, reacting to its environment in the same ways its ancestors did .

 But the environment is not the same.   It is a cultural environment . Generations of ants have left their marks on the beach, and now a dumb ant has been made to appear smart through its simple interaction with the residua of the history of its ancestor's actions .

Simon was obviou sly right : in watching the ant, we learn more about the beach than about what is inside the ant. And in watching people thinking in the wild , we may be learning more about their

environment for thinking than about what is inside them .  

Having realized this , we should not pack up and leave the beach, concluding that we cannot learn about cognition here. The environments of human thinking are not " natural " environments . They are artificial through and through .

Humans create their cognitive powers by creating the environments in which they exercise those powers . At present, so few of us have taken the time to study these environments seriously as organizers of cognitive activity that we have little sense of their role in the construction of thought.