Six characteristics of effective representational systems for conceptual learning in complex domains have been identified. Such representations should: (1) integrate levels of abstraction; (2) combine globally homogeneous with locally heterogeneous representation of concepts; (3) integrate alternative perspectives of the domain; (4) support malleable manipulation of expressions; (5) possess compact procedures; and (6) have uniform procedures. The characteristics were discovered by analysing and evaluating a novel diagrammatic representation that has been invented to support students' comprehension of electricity—AVOW diagrams (Amps, Volts, Ohms, (...) Watts). A task analysis is presented that demonstrates that problem solving using a conventional algebraic approach demands more effort than AVOW diagrams. In an experiment comparing two groups of learners using the alternative approaches, the group using AVOW diagrams learned more than the group using equations and were better able to solve complex transfer problems and questions involving multiple constraints. Analysis of verbal protocols and work scratchings showed that the AVOW diagram group, in contrast to the equations group, acquired a coherently organised network of concepts, learnt effective problem solving procedures, and experienced more positive learning events. The six principles of effective representations were proposed on the basis of these findings. AVOW diagrams are Law Encoding Diagrams, a general class of representations that have been shown to support learning in other scientific domains. (shrink)

Even though it has been argued that scientific cognition is distributed, there is no consensus on the exact nature of distributed cognition. This paper aims to characterize distributed cognition as appropriate for philosophical studies of science. I first classify competing characterizations into three types: the property approach, the task approach, and the system approach. It turns out that the property approach and the task approach are subject to criticism. I then argue that the most preferable way to understand distributed cognition (...) in science is provided by the system approach that takes a distributed-cognitive system as the unit of analysis. I clarify this position by considering possible objections and replies. (shrink)

Six characteristics of effective representational systems for conceptual learning in complex domains have been identified. Such representations should: (1) integrate levels of abstraction; (2) combine globally homogeneous with locally heterogeneous representation of concepts; (3) integrate alternative perspectives of the domain; (4) support malleable manipulation of expressions; (5) possess compact procedures; and (6) have uniform procedures. The characteristics were discovered by analysing and evaluating a novel diagrammatic representation that has been invented to support students' comprehension of electricity—AVOW diagrams (Amps, Volts, Ohms, (...) Watts). A task analysis is presented that demonstrates that problem solving using a conventional algebraic approach demands more effort than AVOW diagrams. In an experiment comparing two groups of learners using the alternative approaches, the group using AVOW diagrams learned more than the group using equations and were better able to solve complex transfer problems and questions involving multiple constraints. Analysis of verbal protocols and work scratchings showed that the AVOW diagram group, in contrast to the equations group, acquired a coherently organised network of concepts, learnt effective problem solving procedures, and experienced more positive learning events. The six principles of effective representations were proposed on the basis of these findings. AVOW diagrams are Law Encoding Diagrams, a general class of representations that have been shown to support learning in other scientific domains. (shrink)

In recent years, the growing scientific interest in design has led to great advances in our knowledge of authentic design processes. However, as these findings go counter to the existing theories in both design research and cognitive science, they pose a serious challenge for both disciplines: there is a wide gap between what the existing theories predict and what designers actually do. At the same time, there is a growing movement of research on authentic cognitive activities, which has among other (...) things documented the central roles of action and the physical environment in these activities, something that existing cognitive theories have overlooked and cannot properly account for. This creates an explanatory gap analogous to the one found in design. This book aims to fill both of these gaps with a cognitive theory of how designers work. It revolves around the roles of physical activities and working materials in design, and the theory explains at length how these have functions that are essential to cognition. The two threads of design and cognition run in parallel throughout the book: the cognitive theory is applied to design, but is also consistently related to cognition in general. The result is, in back cover text parlance, a 'provocative' account of cognition and human performance, which should be of interest to cognitive scientists as well as to design researchers. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that several recent ‘wide’ perspectives on cognition (embodied, embedded, extended, enactive, and distributed) are only partially relevant to the study of cognition. While these wide accounts override traditional methodological individualism, the study of cognition has already progressed beyond these proposed perspectives towards building integrated explanations of the mechanisms involved, including not only internal submechanisms but also interactions with others, groups, cognitive artifacts, and their environment. The claim is substantiated with reference to recent developments in the (...) study of “mindreading” and debates on emotions. We claim that the current practice in cognitive (neuro)science has undergone, in effect, a silent mechanistic revolution, and has turned from initial binary oppositions and abstract proposals towards the integration of wide perspectives with the rest of the cognitive (neuro)sciences. (shrink)

Poems are treated by translators as hierarchical multilevel systems. Here we propose the notion of “multilevel poetry translation” to characterize such cases of poetry translation in terms of selection and rebuilding of a multilevel system of constraints across languages. Different levels of a poem correspond to different sets of components that asymmetrically constrain each other (e. g., grammar, lexicon, syntactic construction, prosody, rhythm, typography, etc.). This perspective allows a poem to be approached as a thinking-tool: an “experimental lab” which submits (...) language to unusual conditions and provides a scenario to observe the emergence of new patterns of semiotic behaviour as a result. We describe this operation as a problem-solving task, and exemplify with Augusto de Campos’ Portuguese translation of John Donne’s poem “The Expiration.”. (shrink)

The icon is the type of sign connected to efficient representational features, and its manipulation reveals more information about its object. The London Underground Diagram (LUD) is an iconic artifact and a well-known example of representational efficiency, having been copied by urban transportation systems worldwide. This paper investigates the efficiency of the LUD in the light of different conceptions of iconicity. We stress that a specialized representation is an icon of the formal structure of the problem for which it has (...) been specialized. By embedding such rules of action and behavior, the icon acts as a semiotic artifact distributing cognitive effort and participating in niche construction. (shrink)

The main purpose of this work is to provide a semiotic ontology for redescription of active cognitive externalism, recently developed by the paradigm 4E (embodied, embedded, enactive, extended cognition). In our approach, distributed cognitive systems (DCSs) are described as semiosis, signs in action. We explored the relationship between semiosis and cognition, as conceived by C. S. Peirce, in association with the notion of distributed cognitive system (DCS). We introduce Peircean externalist approach with an emphasis on the notion of temporal distribution (...) of semiosis, and describe DCSs, and their elements, as “sign in action”. To develop this argument, we describe an example of DCS -- verbal-musical improvisation of repente, repentismo, or viola singing. It is a phenomenon of verbal-musical improvisation that takes the form of a challenge in versified oral poetry. We describe the phenomenon as the embodiment of the formal structure of a cognitive task and an inferential process. This embodiment corresponds to a semiotization of the repente performances as DCSs. The temporally distributed tendency of repentismo organizes the DCS as a system that performs metasemiotic experiments on the action of signs. (shrink)

Goal‐directed cognition is often discussed in terms of specialized memory structures like the “goal stack.” The goal‐activation model presented here analyzes goal‐directed cognition in terms of the general memory constructs of activation and associative priming. The model embodies three predictive constraints: (1) the interference level, which arises from residual memory for old goals; (1) the strengthening constraint, which makes predictions about time to encode a new goal; and (3) the priming constraint, which makes predictions about the role of cues in (...) retrieving pending goals. These constraints are formulated algebraically and tested through simulation of latency and error data from the Tower of Hanoi, a means‐ends puzzle that depends heavily on suspension and resumption of goals. Implications of the model for understanding intention superiority, postcompletion error, and effects of task interruption are discussed. (shrink)

Self‐explaining is an effective metacognitive strategy that can help learners develop deeper understanding of the material they study. This experiment explored if the format of material (i.e., text or diagrams) influences the self‐explanation effect. Twenty subjects were presented with information about the human circulatory system and prompted to self‐explain; 10 received this information in text and 10 in diagrams. Results showed that students given diagrams performed significantly better on post‐tests than students given text. Diagrams students also generated significantly more self‐explanations (...) that text students. Furthermore, the benefits of self‐explaining were much greater in the diagrams condition. To discover why diagrams can promote the self‐explanation effect, results are interpreted with reference to the multiple differences in the semantic, cognitive and affective properties of the texts and diagrams studied. (shrink)

Learning to solve a class of problems can be characterized as a search through a space of hypotheses about the rules for solving these problems. A series of four experiments studied how different learning conditions affected the search among hypotheses about the solution rule for a simple computational problem. Experiment 1 showed that a problem property such as computational difficulty of the rules biased the search process and so affected learning. Experiment 2 examined the impact of examples as instructional tools (...) and found that their effectiveness was determined by whether they uniquely pointed to the correct rule. Experiment 3 compared verbal directions with examples and found that both could guide search. The final experiment tried to improve learning by using more explicit verbal directions or by adding scaffolding to the example. While both manipulations improved learning, learning still took the form of a search through a hypothesis space of possible rules. We describe a model that embodies two assumptions: the instruction can bias the rules participants hypothesize rather than directly be encoded into a rule; participants do not have memory for past wrong hypotheses and are likely to retry them. These assumptions are realized in a Markov model that fits all the data by estimating two sets of probabilities. First, the learning condition induced one set of Start probabilities of trying various rules. Second, should this first hypothesis prove wrong, the learning condition induced a second set of Choice probabilities of considering various rules. These findings broaden our understanding of effective instruction and provide implications for instructional design. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es analizar y revisar las normas que filosóficamente asociamos al proceso de testimonio, inquiriendo hasta qué puntoson0 consistentes con los conocimientos empíricos de las ciencias cognitivas.Tradicionalmente, el problema del testimonio surgía cuando, desde una epistemología de corte individualista, se suponía, siguiendo el dictum ya marcado en la Modernidad tanto por racionalistas como por empiristas, de que el conocimiento debía ser testado personalmente. Sin embargo, disciplinas y enfoques recientes, como la Cognición Socialmente Distribuida y la Epistemología (...) Social ofrecen otra vía al considerar al grupo la unidad cognitiva realmente significativa e intentar solucionar el problema del testimonio desde esa perspectiva. Nuestro objetivo es analizar los motivos por los que la CSD es un buen modelo para explicar algunas de las paradojas y problemas epistemológicos cuando tenemos en cuenta el papel del testimonio en el desarrollo de la ciencia. The goal of this paper is to review and analyze norms philosophically associated with the process of testimony and to investigate to what extent they are consistent with empirical knowledge supplied by cognitive science. Traditionally, the problem of testimony used to arise when it was supposed, from the viewpoint of an individualistic epistemology, that followed the dictum stated by rationalists and empiricists in Modernity, that knowledge had to be tested personally. However, recent disciplines and approaches, like Socially Distributed Cognition and Social Epistemology, provide alternative ways of thinking. This is the case when we consider the group as the truly significant cognitive unit and from such perspective we try to solve the problem of testimony. Therefore, our aim is to examine the reasons why SDC offers a good model for explaining some of the paradoxes and epistemological problems that arise when we consider the issue of testimony in the development of science. (shrink)

According to the hypotheses of distributed and extended cognition, remembering does not always occur entirely inside the brain but is often distributed across heterogeneous systems combining neural, bodily, social, and technological resources. These ideas have been intensely debated in philosophy, but the philosophical debate has often remained at some distance from relevant empirical research, while empirical memory research, in particular, has been somewhat slow to incorporate distributed/extended ideas. This situation, however, appears to be changing, as we witness an increasing level (...) of interaction between the philosophy and the empirical research. In this editorial, we provide a high-level historical overview of the development of the debates around the hypotheses of distributed and extended cognition, as well as relevant theory and empirical research on memory, considering both the role of memory in theoretical debates around distributed/extended ideas and strands of memory research that resonate with those ideas; we emphasize recent trends towards increased interaction, including new empirical paradigms for investigating distributed memory systems. We then provide an overview of the special issue itself, drawing out a number of general implications from the contributions, and conclude by sketching promising directions for future research on distributed memory. (shrink)

This paper explores the interaction between implicit and explicit processes during skill learning, in terms of top-down learning (that is, learning that goes from explicit to implicit knowledge) versus bottom-up learning (that is, learning that goes from implicit to explicit knowledge). Instead of studying each type of knowledge (implicit or explicit) in isolation, we stress the interaction between the two types, especially in terms of one type giving rise to the other, and its effects on learning. The work presents an (...) integrated model of skill learning that takes into account both implicit and explicit processes and both top-down and bottom-up learning. We examine and simulate human data in the Tower of Hanoi task. The paper shows how the quantitative data in this task may be captured using either top-down or bottom-up approaches, although top-down learning is a more apt explanation of the human data currently available. These results illustrate the two different directions of learning (top-down versus bottom-up), and thereby provide a new perspective on skill learning. Ó 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. (shrink)

1. The Situation in Cognition 2. Situated Cognition: A Potted Recent History 3. Extensions in Biology, Computation, and Cognition 4. Articulating the Idea of Cognitive Extension 5. Are Some Resources Intrinsically Non-Cognitive? 6. Is Cognition Extended or Only Embedded? 7. Letting Nature Take Its Course.

The emulation theory of representation is developed and explored as a framework that can revealingly synthesize a wide variety of representational functions of the brain. The framework is based on constructs from control theory (forward models) and signal processing (Kalman filters). The idea is that in addition to simply engaging with the body and environment, the brain constructs neural circuits that act as models of the body and environment. During overt sensorimotor engagement, these models are driven by efference copies in (...) parallel with the body and environment, in order to provide expectations of the sensory feedback, and to enhance and process sensory information. These models can also be run off-line in order to produce imagery, estimate outcomes of different actions, and evaluate and develop motor plans. The framework is initially developed within the context of motor control, where it has been shown that inner models running in parallel with the body can reduce the effects of feedback delay problems. The same mechanisms can account for motor imagery as the off-line driving of the emulator via efference copies. The framework is extended to account for visual imagery as the off-line driving of an emulator of the motor-visual loop. I also show how such systems can provide for amodal spatial imagery. Perception, including visual perception, results from such models being used to form expectations of, and to interpret, sensory input. I close by briefly outlining other cognitive functions that might also be synthesized within this framework, including reasoning, theory of mind phenomena, and language. Key Words: efference copies; emulation theory of representation; forward models; Kalman filters; motor control; motor imagery; perception; visual imagery. (shrink)

This paper explores the question of what makes diagrammatic representations effective for human logical reasoning, focusing on how Euler diagrams support syllogistic reasoning. It is widely held that diagrammatic representations aid intuitive understanding of logical reasoning. In the psychological literature, however, it is still controversial whether and how Euler diagrams can aid untrained people to successfully conduct logical reasoning such as set-theoretic and syllogistic reasoning. To challenge the negative view, we build on the findings of modern diagrammatic logic and introduce (...) an Euler-style diagrammatic representation system that is designed to avoid problems inherent to a traditional version of Euler diagrams. It is hypothesized that Euler diagrams are effective not only in interpreting sentential premises but also in reasoning about semantic structures implicit in given sentences. To test the hypothesis, we compared Euler diagrams with other types of diagrams having different syntactic or semantic properties. Experiment compared the difference in performance between syllogistic reasoning with Euler diagrams and Venn diagrams. Additional analysis examined the case of a linear variant of Euler diagrams, in which set-relationships are represented by one-dimensional lines. The experimental results provide evidence supporting our hypothesis. It is argued that the efficacy of diagrams in supporting syllogistic reasoning crucially depends on the way they represent the relational information contained in categorical sentences. (shrink)

This article describes a representation-based framework of distributed cognition. This framework considers distributed cognition as a cognitive system whose structures and processes are distributed between internal and external representations, across a group of individuals, and across space and time. The major issue for distributed research, under this framework, are the distribution, transformation, and propagation of information across the components of the distributed cognitive system and how they affect the performance of the system as a whole. To demonstrate the value of (...) this representation-based approach, the framework was used to describe and explain an important, challenging, and controversial issue — the concept of affordance. (shrink)

We present a model of how counting is learned based on the ability to perform a series of specific steps. The steps require conceptual knowledge of three components: numerosity as a property of collections; numerals; and one-to-one mappings between numerals and collections. We argue that establishing one-to-one mappings is the central feature of counting. In the literature, the so-called cardinality principle has been in focus when studying the development of counting. We submit that identifying the procedural ability to count with (...) the cardinality principle is not sufficient, but only one of the several steps in the counting process. Moreover, we suggest that some of these steps may be facilitated by the external organization of the counting situation. Using the methods of situated cognition, we analyze how the balance between external and internal representations will imply different loads on the working memory and attention of the counting individual. This analysis will show that even if the counter can competently use the cardinality principle, counting will vary in difficulty depending on the physical properties of the elements of collection and on their special arrangement. The upshot is that situated factors will influence counting performance. (shrink)

The cross-disciplinary framework of Material Engagement Theory (MET) has emerged as a novel research program that flexibly spans archeology, anthropology, philosophy, and cognitive science. True to its slogan to ‘take material culture seriously’, “MET wants to change our understanding of what minds are and what they are made of by changing what we know about what things are and what they do for the mind” (Malafouris 2013, 141). By tracing out more clearly the conceptual contours of ‘material engagement,’ and firming (...) up its ontological commitments, the main goal of this article is to help refine Malafouris’ fertile approach. In particular, we argue for a rapprochement between MET and the tradition of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory, based on the ‘Vygotskian’ hypothesis of scaffolded and/or distributed cognition. (shrink)

Up to this point, university education has largely remained unaffected by the developments of novel approaches to web-based learning. The paper presents a principled approach to the design of problem-oriented, web-based learning at the university level. The principles include providing authentic contexts with multimedia, supporting collaborative knowledge construction, making thinking visible with dynamic visualisation, quick access to content resources via Information and Communication Technologies, and flexible support by tele-tutoring. These principles are used in the Munich Net-based Learning In Computer Science (...) learning environment, which is designed to support students of computer science to apply their factual knowledge from the lectures to complex real-world problems. For example, students can model the knowledge management in an educational organisation with a graphical simulation tool. Some more general findings from a formative evaluation study with the MUNICS prototype are reported and discussed. E.g., the students' ignorance of the additional content resources is discussed in the light of the well-known finding of insufficient use of help systems in software applications. (shrink)

In the first part of this paper, I delineate Peirce's general concept of diagrammatic reasoning from other usages of the term that focus either on diagrammatic systems as developed in logic and AI or on reasoning with mental models. The main function of Peirce's form of diagrammatic reasoning is to facilitate individual or social thinking processes in situations that are too complex to be coped with exclusively by internal cognitive means. I provide a diagrammatic definition of diagrammatic reasoning that emphasizes (...) the construction of, and experimentation with, external representations based on the rules and conventions of a chosen representation system. The second part starts with a summary of empirical research regarding cognitive effects of working with diagrams and a critique of approaches that use “mental models” to explain those effects. The main focus of this section is, however, to elaborate the idea that diagrammatic reasoning should be conceptualized as a case of “distributed cognition.” Using the mathematics lesson described by Plato in his Meno, I analyze those cognitive conditions of diagrammatic reasoning that are relevant in this case. (shrink)

This paper outlines a method to assess the effectiveness of diagrams, from semiotic foundations. In doing so, we explore the Peircian notion of signification, as applied to diagrammatic representations. We review a history of diagrams, with particular emphasis on schematics used for representing systems, and uncover the neglect of semiotic analysis of diagrammatic representations. Through application of category theory to the Peircian triadic model, we propose a set of quantitative quality measures for diagrams, and a framework for their assessment, based (...) on the properties of their encoding, pragmatic and perceptual morphisms. These measures include diagram complexity, utility, aesthetics and expert assessment of semiotic content, together with qualitative feedback. We consider the diagrams as an aid to cognitive processes, rather than a purely communication media. This utility-focused perspective on diagram quality dimensions allows for fresh insights into the creation of effective diagrams. (shrink)

Previous accounts of how people develop expertise have focused on how deliberate practice transforms the cognitive and perceptual representations and processes that give rise to expertise. However, the likelihood of developing expertise with a particular tool may also depend on the degree to which that tool fits pre‐existing perceptual and cognitive abilities. The present studies explored whether the abacus—a descendent of the first human computing devices—may have evolved to exploit general biases in human visual attention, or whether developing expertise with (...) the abacus requires learning special strategies for allocating visual attention to the abacus. To address this question, we administered a series of visual search tasks to abacus experts and subjects who had little to no abacus experience, in which search targets and distractors were overlaid atop abacus “beads.” Across three studies, we found that both experts and naïve subjects were faster to detect targets in semantically relevant components of the abacus, suggesting that abacus training is not required to exhibit attentional biases toward these components of the abacus. This finding suggests that the attentional biases that scaffold numerical processing of the abacus may emerge from general properties of visual attention that are exploited by the design of the abacus itself. (shrink)

When thought overwhelms the mind, the mind uses the body and the world. Several studies reveal ways that people alone or together use gesture and marks on paper to structure and augment their thought for comprehension, inference, and discovery. The studies show that the mapping of thought to gesture or the page is more direct than the arbitrary mapping to language and suggest that these forms of visual/spatial/action representation are used to “translate” language into mental representations. It is argued that (...) actions in space create patterns in the world that reflect abstractions, that the actions are incorporated into gestures and the patterns into diagrams, a network that integrates gesture, action, the designed world, and abstraction dubbed spraction. (shrink)

We present a model of how counting is learned based on the ability to perform a series of specific steps. The steps require conceptual knowledge of three components: numerosity as a property of collections; numerals; and one-to-one mappings between numerals and collections. We argue that establishing one-to-one mappings is the central feature of counting. In the literature, the so-called cardinality principle has been in focus when studying the development of counting. We submit that identifying the procedural ability to count with (...) the cardinality principle is not sufficient, but only one of the several steps in the counting process. Moreover, we suggest that some of these steps may be facilitated by the external organization of the counting situation. Using the methods of situated cognition, we analyze how the balance between external and internal representations will imply different loads on the working memory and attention of the counting individual. This analysis will show that even if the counter can competently use the cardinality principle, counting will vary in difficulty depending on the physical properties of the elements of collection and on their special arrangement. The upshot is that situated factors will influence counting performance. (shrink)

Drawing on a range of literature, I introduce two new concepts for understanding and exploring distributed cognition: resilience engineering and degeneracy. By re-examining Ed Hutchins’ (1995) ethnographic study of the navigation team I show how a focus on the developmental acquisition of cognitive practices can draw out several crucial insights that have been overlooked. Firstly, that the way in which agents learn and acquire cognitive practices enables a form of resilience engineering: the process by which the system is able to (...) overcome and adapt to errors and the vagaries of nature. Secondly, that the best way to engineer a resilient system is through promoting degeneracy – how differing structures produce the same function – at the level of cognitive practices. These two features show that focusing on cognitive practices and developmental trajectories is important for both greater explanatory leverage; and is also useful in regard to the practicalities of designing real-world cognitive systems. (shrink)

In the first part of the paper, previous work about embodied mathematics and the practice of topology will be presented. According to the proposed view, in order to become experts, topologists have to learn how to use manipulative imagination: representations are cognitive tools whose functioning depends from pre-existing cognitive abilities and from specific training. In the second part of the paper, the notion of imagination as “make-believe” is discussed to give an account of cognitive tools in mathematics as props; to (...) better specify the claim, the notion of “affordance” is explored in its possible extension from concrete objects to representations. (shrink)

In this study, Knauff and Johnson-Laird's visual impedance hypothesis is applied to the domain of external representations and diagrammatic reasoning. We show that the use of real objects and augmented real objects can control human interpretation and reasoning about conditionals. As participants made inferences, they also moved objects corresponding to premises. Participants who moved real objects made more invalid inferences than those who moved AR objects and those who did not manipulate objects. Our results showed that real objects impeded conditional (...) reasoning, but AR objects did not. These findings are explained by the fact that real objects may over-specify a single state that exists, while AR objects suggest multiple possibilities. (shrink)

The popular iconography of insight casts a thinker as he or she uncoils from a Rodin pose and a bulb that lights a world hitherto hidden. By and large, these features of folk mythology capture and guide how psychologists conduct research on insight: Mental processes — some of which may be unconscious — transform an inceptive abstract representation of the world until it prescribes a fruitful solution to a problem. Yet thinking and problem solving outside the laboratory involve interacting with (...) external resources, and through this interactivity with a material world, solutions are distilled. Still, laboratory work on problem solving pays scant and largely indifferent attention to interactivity: Sometimes problems are presented as riddles or static graphical or diagrammatic images, or sometimes they are accompanied by artefacts that can be manipulated. The research methodology — and indifference to the central role of interactivity in thinking — follows from a deep-seated commitment to mentalism and methodological individualism. However, a thinker is an embodied creature embedded in a physical world: The materiality of external resources and artefacts through which problems manifest themselves inevitably determines a set of action affordances. From a systemic perspective, thinking is traceable along a contingent spatio-temporal itinerary wrought by interactivity and evidenced by changes in the world. (shrink)

When thought overwhelms the mind, the mind uses the body and the world. Several studies reveal ways that people alone or together use gesture and marks on paper to structure and augment their thought for comprehension, inference, and discovery. The studies show that the mapping of thought to gesture or the page is more direct than the arbitrary mapping to language and suggest that these forms of visual/spatial/action representation are used to “translate” language into mental representations. It is argued that (...) actions in space create patterns in the world that reflect abstractions, that the actions are incorporated into gestures and the patterns into diagrams, a network that integrates gesture, action, the designed world, and abstraction dubbed spraction. (shrink)

What I call theoretical abduction (sentential and model-based)certainly illustrates much of what is important in abductive reasoning, especially the objective of selecting and creating a set of hypotheses that are able to dispense good (preferred) explanations of data, but fails to account for many cases of explanation occurring in science or in everyday reasoning when the exploitation of the environment is crucial. The concept of manipulative abduction is devoted to capture the role of action in many interesting situations: action provides (...) otherwise unavailable information that enables the agent to solve problems by starting and performing a suitable abductive process of generation or selection of hypotheses. Many external things, usually inert from the epistemological point of view, can be transformed into what I call epistemic mediators, which are illustrated in the last part of the paper, together with an analysis of the related notions of ``perceptual and inceptual rehearsal'' and of ``external representation''. (shrink)

One of the critical issues in the philosophy of science is to understand scientific knowledge. This paper proposes a novel approach to the study of reflection on science, called “cognitive metascience”. In particular, it offers a new understanding of scientific knowledge as constituted by various kinds of scientific representations, framed as cognitive artifacts. It introduces a novel functional taxonomy of cognitive artifacts prevalent in scientific practice, covering a huge diversity of their formats, vehicles, and functions. As a consequence, toolboxes, conceptual (...) frameworks, theories, models, and individual hypotheses can be understood as artifacts supporting our cognitive performance. It is also shown that by empirically studying how artifacts function, we may discover hitherto undiscussed virtues and vices of these scientific representations. This paper relies on the use of language technology to analyze scientific discourse empirically, which allows us to uncover the metascientific views of researchers. This, in turn, can become part of normative considerations concerning virtues and vices of cognitive artifacts. (shrink)

This paper deals with computer support for collaborative learning environments. Our analysis is based on a moderate constructivist view on learning, which emphasizes the need to support learners instructionally in their collaborative knowledge construction. We will first illustrate the extent to which the computer can provide tools for supporting collaborative knowledge construction. Secondly, we will focus on instruction itself and show the kinds of advanced instructional methods that computer tools may provide for the learners. Furthermore, we will discuss the learners’ (...) prerequisites and how they must be considered when constructing learning environments. (shrink)

Three experiments examined the effects of interactive visualizations and spatial abilities on a task requiring participants to infer and draw cross sections of a three‐dimensional (3D) object. The experiments manipulated whether participants could interactively control a virtual 3D visualization of the object while performing the task, and compared participants who were allowed interactive control of the visualization to those who were not allowed control. In Experiment 1, interactivity produced better performance than passive viewing, but the advantage of interactivity disappeared in (...) Experiment 2 when visual input for the two conditions in a yoked design was equalized. In Experiments 2 and 3, differences in how interactive participants manipulated the visualization were large and related to performance. In Experiment 3, non‐interactive participants who watched optimal movements of the display performed as well as interactive participants who manipulated the visualization effectively and better than interactive participants who manipulated the visualization ineffectively. Spatial ability made an independent contribution to performance on the spatial reasoning task, but did not predict patterns of interactive behavior. These experiments indicate that providing participants with active control of a computer visualization does not necessarily enhance task performance, whereas seeing the most task‐relevant information does, and this is true regardless of whether the task‐relevant information is obtained actively or passively. (shrink)

Studies have shown that videoconferences are an effective medium for facilitating communication between parties who are separated by distance. Furthermore, studies reveal that videoconferences are effective when used for distance learning, particularly due to their ability to facilitate complex collaborative learning tasks. However, as in face-to-face communication, learners benefit when they receive additional support for such learning tasks. This article provides an overview of two empirical studies to illustrate more general insights regarding some effective and less effective ways to support (...) collaborative learning with videoconferencing. The focus is on content schemes as content-specific support and task-specific support as collaboration scripts. Based on the results of the two studies, conclusions can be drawn about support measures that promote learning. Conclusions can also be reached about the need for employing both content schemes and collaboration scripts to provide learners with the most benefit. (shrink)

This paper investigates the notion of semiotic scaffolding in relation to mathematics by considering its influence on mathematical activities, and on the evolution of mathematics as a research field. We will do this by analyzing the role different representational forms play in mathematical cognition, and more broadly on mathematical activities. In the main part of the paper, we will present and analyze three different cases. For the first case, we investigate the semiotic scaffolding involved in pencil and paper multiplication. For (...) the second case, we investigate how the development of new representational forms influenced the development of the theory of exponentiation. For the third case, we analyze the connection between the development of commutative diagrams and the development of both algebraic topology and category theory. Our main conclusions are that semiotic scaffolding indeed plays a role in both mathematical cognition and in the development of mathematics itself, but mathematical cognition cannot itself be reduced to the use of semiotic scaffolding. (shrink)

What I call theoretical abduction (sentential and model-based) certainly illustrates much of what is important in abductive reasoning, especially the objective of selecting and creating a set of hypotheses that are able to dispense good (preferred) explanations of data, but fails to account for many cases of explanations occurring in science or in everyday reasoning when the exploitation of the environment is crucial. The concept of manipulative abduction is devoted to capture the role of action in many interesting situations: action (...) provides otherwise unavailable information that enables the agent to solve problems by starting and performing a suitable abductive process of generation or selection of hypotheses. Many external things, usually inert from the epistemological point of view, can be transformed into what I call epistemic mediators, which are illustrated in the last part of the paper, together with an analysis of the related notion of external representation . Finally, some examples of computational programs that simulate geometrical reasoning are illustrated. The computational embodiment generates a kind of squared epistemic mediator: geometrical construction, as an example of epistemic mediator, is further mediated. (shrink)

Participants in cognitive psychology experiments on reasoning and problem solving are commonly sequestered: Efforts are made to impoverish the physical context in which the problem is presented, decoupling people from the richer and modifiable environment that naturally instantiates it outside the lab. Sense-making activities are constrained, but this conforms to the strong internalist and individualist commitments implicit to these research efforts: Cognition reflects internal computations and the scientists’ toils must focus on the individual and what she is thinking, decoupled from (...) the world. We contrast this position with one that identifies cognition as the product of a cognitive system that is configured and enacted by, minimally, an agent and the world in which she is embedded. We review work on the psychology of hypothesis testing and problem solving and argue that refocusing research efforts on the dynamic agent-environment couplings that generate cognitive products — such as a problem representation, a hypothesis or a problem solution — offers a much richer set of methodological opportunities to unveil how people actually think outside the cognitive psychologist’s laboratory. We conclude by exploring the ontological implications of a systemic perspective on cognition. (shrink)

Participants in cognitive psychology experiments on reasoning and problem solving are commonly sequestered: Efforts are made to impoverish the physical context in which the problem is presented, decoupling people from the richer and modifiable environment that naturally instantiates it outside the lab. Sense-making activities are constrained, but this conforms to the strong internalist and individualist commitments implicit to these research efforts: Cognition reflects internal computations and the scientists’ toils must focus on the individual and what she is thinking, decoupled from (...) the world. We contrast this position with one that identifies cognition as the product of a cognitive system that is configured and enacted by, minimally, an agent and the world in which she is embedded. We review work on the psychology of hypothesis testing and problem solving and argue that refocusing research efforts on the dynamic agent-environment couplings that generate cognitive products — such as a problem representation, a hypothesis or a problem solution — offers a much richer set of methodological opportunities to unveil how people actually think outside the cognitive psychologist’s laboratory. We conclude by exploring the ontological implications of a systemic perspective on cognition. (shrink)

Cognition is both empowered and limited by representations. The matrix lens model explicates tasks that are based on frequency counts, conditional probabilities, and binary contingencies in a general fashion. Based on a structural analysis of such tasks, the model links several problems and semantic domains and provides a new perspective on representational accounts of cognition that recognizes representational isomorphs as opportunities, rather than as problems. The shared structural construct of a 2 × 2 matrix supports a set of generic tasks (...) and semantic mappings that provide a unifying framework for understanding problems and defining scientific measures. Our model's key explanatory mechanism is the adoption of particular perspectives on a 2 × 2 matrix that categorizes the frequency counts of cases by some condition, treatment, risk, or outcome factor. By the selective steps of filtering, framing, and focusing on specific aspects, the measures used in various semantic domains negotiate distinct trade-offs between abstraction and specialization. As a consequence, the transparent communication of such measures must explicate the perspectives encapsulated in their derivation. To demonstrate the explanatory scope of our model, we use it to clarify theoretical debates on biases and facilitation effects in Bayesian reasoning and to integrate the scientific measures from various semantic domains within a unifying framework. A better understanding of problem structures, representational transparency, and the role of perspectives in the scientific process yields both theoretical insights and practical applications. (shrink)