Cognitive Science and Technology
Social, cultural, and distributed elements of cognition

Richard Alterman

Brandeis University

 

 Lecture 1: Distributed Cognition.

                    Required reading:

Hutchins, E. (1993) Learning to navigate. In Chaiklin, S. and Lave, J., editors, Understanding Practice, pages 35–63. Cambridge University Press.

Norman, D. (1988).  Chapter 1, The Psychology of Everyday Things. Basic Books.

Additional readings:

Hutchins, E. (1995).  How a cockpit remembers its speed.  Cognitive Science, 19:265-288.

Hutchins, E. (1995) Cognition in the Wild. MIT Press

Norman, D. (1993) Things that makes us smart. Perseus Books.

Kirsh, D. Complementary strategies: Why we use our hands when we think. Proceedings of the Seventheenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. 212-217. 1995.

Perry, M. (2003) Distributed Cognition. In J.M. Carroll (editor), HCI Models, Theories, and Frameworks.  Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.

Lecture 2:  Acting in the world

                    Required Readings:

Cole, M., & Engeström, Y. (1993) A cultural historic approach to distributed cognition.  In G. Salomon (Ed.), Distributed Cognitions, 1-46. Cambridge University Press.

Additional readings:

Alterman, R., Zito-Wolf, R., and Carpenter, T. Pragmatic Action.
Cognitive Science, 22:1, 53-105, 1998.

Kaptelinin V. & Nardi, B. (2006)  Activity theory in a nutshell. In Acting with technology.

Lewis, D. (1969) Convention, reprinted (2002) Blackwell Publishing.

Alterman, R. and Garland, A. Convention in Joint Activity.
Cognitive Science, 25(4) 611-657, 2001.

Agre,P. and Chapman, D. (1990)  What are plans for?  Robotics and Autonomous Systems, (6) 17-34.

Lecture 3: Intersubjectivity, face-to-face

                    Required readings:

Clark, H. and Brennan, S. (1991). Grounding in Communication.  In Resnick, Levine, and Teasly editors, Perspectives on Socially Shared Cognition, 127-149.

Additional reading:

Clark, H. and Schaefer, E. (1989) Contributing to discourse.
Cognitive Science 13, 259-294.

Clark, H. (1996) Using  Language.  Cambridge University Press.

Sacks, H., Schegloff, E., and Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking in conversation.   Language, 50:696-735.

Schegloff, E. “Repair after Next Turn:  The last structurally provided defense of intersubjectivity in conversation”.  American Journal of Sociology 97(5) 1295-1345.

Tomasello, M., Kruger, A., Ratner, H. (1993) Cultural Learning. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 16, 495-552.

Lecture 4: Intersubjectivity, mediated

                 Required readings:

Alterman, R. Representation, Interaction, and Intersubjectivity.  Cognitive Science, 31(5) 815-841, 2007.

Additional reading:

Olson, J. Teasley, S., Covi, L., and Olson, G.   (2002) The (currently) unique advantages of collocated work. In Hinds & Kiesler (editors) Distributed Work,  MIT Press.

B.P.H. Lee. (2001) Mutual knowledge, background knowledge and shared beliefs: Their roles in establishing common ground. Journal of Pragmatics, 33(1):21–44, 2001.

Schmidt, K. and Simone, C. (1996): "Coordination mechanisms: Towards a Conceptual Foundation of CSCW Systems Design", Computer Supported Cooperative Work 5, p. 155-200.

Lecture 5:  The semantics and (flow of) the interaction

                    Required reading:

Kirsh, D. (2004) Metacognition, Distributed Cognition, and Visual Design, In Gardinfors, P and Johannsson, P., Cognition, Education, and Communication and Technology.

Additional readings:

Hutchins, E., Hollan, J., and Norman, D. (1986). Direct Manipulation Interfaces.  In  Norman, D. an Draper, S. (Eds.), User Centered System Design, LEA, 87-124.

Carroll, J.M. and Rosson, M.B., Paradox of the active user. Interfacing thought: Cognitive aspects of human-computer interaction, 80-111, 1987.

Krisler, B. and Alterman, R. Training towards mastery. NordiCHI, 239-248, 2008

 

Assessment

Students will be assessed on the basis of their written paper (approx. 5 pages double-spaced) and their participation during lecture and seminar.

 

Seminars

During the seminars, there will be discussion and some practice of methods.

 

 

Richard Alterman

Alterman is a Professor of Computer Science at Brandeis University with a joint appointments in Psychology and the Volen Center for Complex Systems. His research is interdisciplinary with a strong computational basis. Early in his career his primary focus was in AI and cognitive modeling, but since then he has worked in other areas with different methods. Currently his research group is doing research in the learning sciences on skill acquisition and computer supported cooperative learning. The research framework of his lab uses a mix of methods from different fields. He is a long time member of the Cognitive Science community, which is his core community. The common theoretical themes of his research are planning and activity, intersubjectivity, and communication.