External cognition
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 12:41, 2 November 2007 (MET)
See also: cognitive tool, instrumentation, affordance, etc.
References
Card, Stuart K. , Jock D. Mackinlay, and Ben Shneiderman (2004). Information Visualization: Perception for Design, Morgan Kaufman. ISBN-10 1558608192.
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.
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