Distributed cognition: toward a new foundation for human-computer interaction research

ABSTRACT

We are quickly passing through the historical moment when people work in front of a single computer, dominated by a small CRT and focused on tasks involving only local information. Networked computers are becoming ubiquitous and are playing increasingly significant roles in our lives and in the basic infrastructures of science, business, and social interaction. For human-computer interaction to advance in the new millennium we need to better understand the emerging dynamic of interaction in which the focus task is no longer confined to the desktop but reaches into a complex networked world of information and computer-mediated interactions. We think the theory of distributed cognition has a special role to play in understanding interactions between people and technologies, for its focus has always been on whole environments: what we really do in them and how we coordinate our activity in them. Distributed cognition provides a radical reorientation of how to think about designing and supporting human-computer interaction. As a theory it is specifically tailored to understanding interactions among people and technologies. In this article we propose distributed cognition as a new foundation for human-computer interaction, sketch an integrated research framework, and use selections from our earlier work to suggest how this framework can provide new opportunities in the design of digital work materials.

REFERENCES

• 1: AGAR, M. 1986. Speaking of Ethnography. Sage Publications, Inc., Thousand Oaks, CA.
• 2: Benjamin B. Bederson , James D. Hollan, Pad++: a zooming graphical interface for exploring alternate interface physics, Proceedings of the 7th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology, p.17-26, November 02-04, 1994, Marina del Rey, California, United States [doi>10.1145/192426.192435]
• 3: BEDERSON, B. B., HOLLAN, J. D., PERLIN, K., MEYER, J., BACON, D., AND FURNAS, G. 1996. Pad+ +: A zoomable graphical sketchpad for exploring alternate interface physics. J. Visual Lang. Comput. 7, 3-31.
• 4: BROOKS, R.A. 1991. Intelligence without reason. In Proceedings of the 12th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (Sydney, Australia, Aug.), R. Myopoulos and J. Reiter, Eds. Morgan Kaufmann, San Mateo, CA, 569-595.
• 5: Stuart K. Card , Allen Newell , Thomas P. Moran, The Psychology of Human-Computer Interaction, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Mahwah, NJ, 1983
• 6: Andy Clark, Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1996
• 7: COLE, M. 1996. Cultural Psychology. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
• 8: Stephen G. Eick , Joseph L. Steffen , Eric E. Sumner, Jr., Seesoft-A Tool for Visualizing Line Oriented Software Statistics, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, v.18 n.11, p.957-968, November 1992 [doi>10.1109/32.177365]
• 9: GOODWIN, C. AND GOODWIN, M. a. 1996. Formulating planes: Seeing as situated activity. In Cognition and Communication at Work, Y. Engestr m and D. Middleton, Eds. Cambridge University Press, New York, NY.
• 10: GRAS, A., MORICOT, C., POIROT-DELPECH, S., AND SCARDIGLI, V. 1991. Le pilote, le controleur, et l'automate. Tech. Rep.. Reedition du rapport predefinition pirttem--cnrs et du rapport final sert--ministere des transports, ed.
• 11: HALVERSON, C.A. 1995. Inside the cognitive workplace: Air traffic control automation. Ph.D. Dissertation. Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego, CA.
• 12: HAZELHURST, B. 1994. Fishing for cognition. Ph.D. Dissertation. Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego, CA.
• 13: Ron R. Hightower , Laura T. Ring , Jonathan I. Helfman , Benjamin B. Bederson , James D. Hollan, Graphical multiscale Web histories: a study of padprints, Proceedings of the ninth ACM conference on Hypertext and hypermedia : links, objects, time and space---structure in hypermedia systems: links, objects, time and space---structure in hypermedia systems, p.58-65, June 20-24, 1998, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States [doi>10.1145/276627.276634]
• 14: HILL, W. C. AND HOLLAN, J. D. 1994. History-enriched digital objects: Prototypes and policy issues. Inf. Soc. 10, 139-145.
• 15: William C. Hill , James D. Hollan , Dave Wroblewski , Tim McCandless, Edit wear and read wear, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.3-9, May 03-07, 1992, Monterey, California, United States [doi>10.1145/142750.142751]
• 16: Jim Hollan , Scott Stornetta, Beyond being there, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.119-125, May 03-07, 1992, Monterey, California, United States [doi>10.1145/142750.142769]
• 17: HOLLAN, J. D., BEDERSON, B. B., AND HELFMAN, J. 1997. Information visualization. In Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction, M. G. Helander, T. K. Landauer, and V. Prabhu, Eds. Elsevier Science Publishers Ltd., Essex, UK, 33-48.
• 18: HOLLAN, J., HUTCHINS, E., AND WEITZMAN, L. 1984. STEAMER: An interactive inspectable simulation-based training system. AI Mag. 5, 2, 15-27.
• 19: HOLLAN, J. D., HUTCHINS, E. L., AND KIRSCH, D. 1998. KDI: A distributed cognition approach to designing digital work materials for collaborative workplaces, http://www.nsf, gov/ cgi-bin/showaward?award= 9873156.
• 20: HUTCHINS, E. 1980. Culture and Inference. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
• 21: HUTCHINS, E. 1994. Cognition in the Wild. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
• 22: HUTCHINS, E. L. 1995. How a cockpit remembers its speed. Cogn. Sci. 19, 265-288.
• 23: HUTCHINS, E. L. 1996. The integrated mode management interface. Tech. Rep. University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA. Final report for project NCC 92-578, NASA Ames Research Center)
• 24: HUTCHINS, E. L. AND KLAUSEN, T. 1996. Distributed cognition in an airline cockpit. In Cognition and Communication at Work, Y. Engestr m and D. Middleton, Eds. Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, 15-34.
• 25: HUTCHINS, E. L. AND PALEN, L. 1997. Constructing meaning from space, gesture, and speech. In Tools, and Reasoning: Essays in Situated Cognition, L. B. Resneck, R. Saljo, C. Pontecorvo, and B. Burge, Eds. Springer-Verlag, Vienna, Austria.
• 26: HUTCHINS, E. L., HOLLAN, J. D., AND NORMAN, D.A. 1985. Direct manipulation interfaces. Human-Comput. Interact. 1, 4, 311-338.
• 27: David Kirsh, The intelligent use of space, Artificial Intelligence, v.73 n.1-2, p.31-68, Feb. 1995 [doi>10.1016/0004-3702(94)00017-U]
• 28: David Kirsh, Adapting the environment instead of oneself, Adaptive Behavior, v.4 n.3-4, p.415-452, Winter/Spring 1996 [doi>10.1177/105971239600400307]
• 29: KmSH, D. 2001. Are all actions exploratory or performatory?. Ecol. Psychol. 13.
• 30: KIRSH, D. AND MAGLIO, P. 1994. On distinguishing epistemic from pragmatic action. Cogn. Sci. 18, 4, 513-549.
• 31: KRONENFELD, D. 1996. Plastic Glasses and Church Fathers. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.
• 32: LAKOFF, G. 1987. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
• 33: MATURANA, H. AND VARELLA, F. 1987. The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding. New Science Library.
• 34: Marvin Minsky, The society of mind, Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York, NY, 1986
• 35: Donald A. Norman, Things that make us smart: defending human attributes in the age of the machine, Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., Boston, MA, 1993
• 36: ROBERTS, J. 1964. The self-management of culture. In Explorations in Cultural Anthropology: Essays in Honor of George Peter Murdoc, W. Goodenough, Ed. McGraw-Hill, London, UK.
• 37: SALOMAN, G., Ed. 1993. Distributed Cognitions: Psychological and Educational Considerations. Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive, and Computational Perspectives. Cambridge University Press, New York, NY.
• 38: SEIFERT, C. M. AND HUTCHINS, E. L. 1992. Error as opportunity: Learning in a cooperative task. Hum. Comput. Interact. 7.
• 39: SHORE, B. 1996. Culture in Mind. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.
• 40: STRAUSS, C. AND QUINN, N. 1998. A Cognitive Theory of Cultural Meaning. Cambridge University Press, New York, NY.
• 41: Lucy A. Suchman, Plans and situated actions: the problem of human-machine communication, Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, 1987
• 42: Esther Thelen, Time-scale dynamics and the development of an embodied cognition, Mind as motion: explorations in the dynamics of cognition, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 1996
• 43: TURVEY, M., SHAW, R., REED, E., AND MACE, W. 1981. Ecological laws of perceiving and acting. Cognition 9, 238-304.
• 44: TYLER, S. 1969. Cognitive Anthropology. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Austin, TX.
• 45: VARLEA, F., THOMPSON, E., AND ROSCH, E. 1991. The Embodied Mind. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
• 46: WALLACE, A. 1970. Cultural and Cognition. Random House Inc., New York, NY.
• 47: WERNER, O. AND SCHOEPFLE, M. 1987. Systematic Fieldwork. Sage Publications, Inc., Thousand Oaks, CA.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.1 Requirements/Specifications
          Subjects: Methodologies (e.g., object-oriented, structured)

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.1 MODELS AND PRINCIPLES
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: Evaluation/methodology
      H.5.3 Group and Organization Interfaces
          Subjects: Evaluation/methodology; Theory and models

General Terms:
Design, Human Factors, Theory

Keywords:
cognitive science, distributed cognition, ethnography, human-computer interaction, research methodology