External cognition

Draft

Definition

External cognition is the use of the external world to achieve cognition.

“External cognition is a phrase referring to ways that people augment their normal cognitive processes with external aids, such as external writings, visualizations, and work spaces. External cognition is human or cognitive information processing that combines internal cognition with perception and manipulation of external representations of information.” - Glossary of Sensemaking Terms, Parc, retrieved 12:47, 2 November 2007 (MET)

See also: cognitive tool, instrumentation, affordance, etc.

Applied fields

• “Visualization is the use of interactive visual representations of data to amplify cognition. This means that the data is transformed into an image, it is mapped to screen space. The image can be changed by users as they proceed working with it. This interaction is important as it allows for constant redefinition of goals when new insight into the data has been gained. Visualization makes use of what is called external cognition.” (Voigt, 2002)

• {Internal cognition is the accessed knowing of tacit, codified abstractions and artifacts by an enactor in a particular situation. External cognition is the embodiment of the natural and the artifactual environment with which the enactor is interacting in that particular situation. This includes faces, signposts, interactive computer visualizations and day-to-day artifacts. External cognition, however, is meaningful only through and during the interplay of internal and external cognition of the enactor. Thus the interaction between the internal and the external cognition of knowledge and the dynamic temporal instantiation of knowledge during its deployment, be it creation, exchange or use, is the fundamental basis of the process that is at the root of the transformation of knowledge during its transfer.}} (Shariq, 1999).

References

• Card, Stuart K. , Jock D. Mackinlay, and Ben Shneiderman (2004). Information Visualization: Perception for Design, Morgan Kaufman. ISBN-10 1558608192.

• Mackinlay, J. D. (1988). Applying a Theory of Graphical Presentation to the Graphic Design of User Interfaces Proceedings of the ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on User Interface Software (UIST '88) 179-189. PDF

• Robertson, G. G., Card, S. K. and Mackinlay, J. D. (1989). The Cognitive Co-Processor for Interactive User Interfaces

Proceedings of the ACM Conference on User Interface Software and Technology 10-18.

• Shariq, Syed Z. (1999). How does knowledge transform as it is transferred? Speculations on the possibility of a cognitive theory of knowledgescapes, Journal of Knowledge Management, 3 (4) pp. 243-251 HTML

Voigt, Robert (2002). An Extended Scatterplot Matrix and Case Studies in Information Visualization, Master Thesis, HTML