Distributed cognition: Difference between revisions

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'''Distributed cognition''' is an approach to [[cognitive science]] research that was developed by cognitive anthropologist [[Edwin Hutchins]] during the 1990s.<ref name="Cognition in the wild">{{cite book | vauthors = Hutchins E |title=Cognition in the wild |date=1995 |publisher=MIT Press |___location=Cambridge, Mass. |isbn=978-0-262-58146-2 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=CGIaNc3F1MgC}}</ref>

From cognitive ethnography, Hutchins argues that mental representations, which classical cognitive science held that are within the individual brain, are actually distributed in sociocultural systems that constitute the tools to think and perceive the world. Thus, a native of the CarolinaCaroline Islands can perceive the sky and organize his perceptions of the constellations typical of his culture (the groupings of stars are different than in the traditional constellations of the West) and use the position of the stars in the sky as a map to orient himself in space while sailing overnight in a canoe.<ref name="Cognition in the wild"/>

According to Hutchins, cognition involves not only the brain but also external artifacts, work teams made up of several people, and cultural systems for interpreting reality (mythical, scientific, or otherwise).