Cognition & Technology
Technology is playing an increasing role in society. As technologies advance, they are quickly penetrating more into the daily life of ordinary people as well as into human expert domains. As technologies are used in our cognitive processes, as they cognitize with us and for us, they influence and impact the very way we acquire information and think, and affect the very nature of cognition. Such technologies can be characterised and termed as Cognitive Technologies, and enables humans to Distribute Cognition and to 'Offloading' Cognition onto Technology.
As technologies advance and infiltrate human cognitive abilities that were once
solely the domain of human experts, we need to consider the advantages as well as the potential pitfalls of using technology to distribute human cognition. The need for using technology is clear, but its role and interaction with human experts (and its implications) have been relatively neglected. Such an examination is critically needed in order to understand which roles are best left for humans (if any), and what is the optimal way to integrate the technologies; thus optimising the development and usage of technologies. Issues of technology interact with many aspects of human cognition, such as pattern recognition, decision making, expertise, and knowledge acquisition. These areas all converge together in many applied domains, e.g., e-learning, medical healthcare, and biometrics (see also decision making).
A wide range of academic and theoretical issues pertaining to technology and cognition are covered in a series of special issues devoted to Cognition & Technology as part of the journal Pragmatics & Cognition. These Special Issues were edited by Dr. Itiel Dror, who has been appointed P&C’s Associate Editor for Cognition & Technology. At Cognitive Consultants International (CCI) we are especially interested and have experience in bridging such theoretical research into specific ways to develop and integrate technology so it works better with people and for people (see list of projects and events).
For information or enquiries, please e-mail: info@CognitiveConsultantsInternational.com
For a paper on some of these issues, see the article Cognitive Technology from the 2013 Yearbook of Science & Technology, and Gold Mines and Land Mines in Cognitive Technology, that appeared in Cognitive Technologies and the Pragmatics of Cognition.
For a general paper on how technology can distribute cognition across people, see the article Offloading Cognition onto Cognitive Technology, that appeared in Cognition Distributed: How Cognitive Technology Extends our Minds.
For a specific paper that illustrates distributed cognition and problems that it may cause, see The use of technology in human expert domains: Challenges and risks arising from the use of automated fingerprint identification systems in forensics, that appeared in the journal Law, Probability and Risk.
More publications and presentations on these issues (see details on books at the very bottom) (to receive copies, please write to Dr Itiel Dror itiel@cci-hq.com):
Dror, I. E. (2013). Cognitive Technology. In the 2013 Yearbook of Science & Technology (pp. 80-82). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Dror, I. E., Wertheim, K., Fraser-Mackenzie, P., and Walajtys, J. (2012). The impact of human-technology cooperation and distributed cognition in forensic science: Biasing effects of AFIS contextual information on human experts. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 57 (2), 343-352.
Dror, I. E. & Mnookin, J. (2010). The use of technology in human expert domains: Challenges and risks arising from the use of automated fingerprint identification systems in forensics. Law, Probability and Risk, 9 (1), 47-67.
Dror, I. E. (2011). Brain friendly technology: What is it? And why we need it? In I. E. Dror, Technology Enhanced Learning and Cognition. John Benjamins, Amsterdam.
Dror, I. E. (in press). What is (or will be) happening to the cognitive abilities of forensic experts in the new technological age. Journal of Forensic Sciences,58 (2), 563.
Dror, I.E. (2006). A holistic-cognitive approach for success in technology. Biometric Technology Today, 14(8), 7-8.
Dror, I. E, Makany, T., & Kemp, J. (in press). Overcoming learning barriers through knowledge management. Dyslexia.
Dror, I.E. (2006). Cognitive science serving security: Assuring useable and efficient biometric and technological solutions. Aviation Security International, 12 (3), 21-28.
Dror, I. E. & Harnad, S. (eds.) (2008). Cognition Distributed: How Cognitive Technology Extends Our Minds. (258 pp.) John Benjamins, Amsterdam.
Dror, I.E. (2008). Technology’s role in learning: Possibilities and pitfalls. Rethinking the digital divide, the 15th International Conference of the Association of Learning Technologies. Leeds University, Leeds.
Dror, I. E. (2008). Technology enhanced learning: The good, the bad, and the ugly. Pragmatics & Cognition, 16 (2), 215-223.
Engelbrecht, P. & Dror, I. E. (2009). How psychology and cognition can inform the creation of ontologies in semantic technologies. In Y. Kiyoki, T. Tokuda, H. Jaakkola, X. Chen, & N., Yoshida (eds.), Information Modelling and Knowledge Bases (pp 340-347). Amsterdam, the Netherlands: IOS Press.
Dror, I. E. & Harnad, S. (2008). Offloading cognition onto cognitive technology. In I.Dror & S. Harnad (Eds.), Cognition Distributed: How Cognitive Technology Extends Our Minds. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing.
Dror, I.E. (2007). Exploiting the opportunities and avoiding the pitfalls of games technology: The cognitive perspective. Using games technology and methodology to improve training & education - the opportunities and the issues, ETSA (European Training and Simulation Association) symposium. London.
Dror, I.E.(ed.) (2007). Cognitive Technologies and the Pragmatics of Cognition. (186 pp.) John Benjamin Press, Amsterdam.
Dror, I. E., Schmidt, P., and O'Connor, L. (2011). A Cognitive Perspective on Technology Enhanced Learning in Medical Training: Great Opportunities, Pitfalls and Challenges. Medical Teacher.
Dror, I.E. (2007). Gold mines and land mines in cognitive technologies. In I. E. Dror (Ed.), Cognitive Technologies and the Pragmatics of Cognition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing.
Dror, I.E. (2008). Fitting learning to human cognition. National Conference of Applied Learning Technologies. Coventry, UK.
Harnad, S. & Dror, I.E. (2006). Distributed Cognition. Pragmatics & Cognition, 14 (2), 209-123.
Dascal, M. & Dror, I. E. (2005). The impact of cognitive technologies: Towards a pragmatic approach. Pragmatics & Cognition, 13 (3), 451-457.
Dror, I.E. (2005). Technology and human expertise: Some do’s and don’ts. Biometric Technology Today, 13 (9), 7-9.
Cherrett, T., Wills, G., Price, J., Maynard,S ., & Dror, I.E. (2009). Making Training More Cognitively Effective: Making Videos Interactive. British Journal of Educational Technology, 40 (6), 1124-1134.
For information or enquiries, please e-mail: info@CognitiveConsultantsInternational.com
Three books:
1: Technology Enhanced Learning and Cognition
The use of technology in learning has increased dramatically. Training and education is now utilizing and almost integrated with the World Wide Web, podcasts, mobile and distant learning, interactive videos, serious games, and a whole range of e-learning. However, has such technology enhanced learning been effective? And how can it better serve training and education?
E-learning must be 'brain friendly', so it optimizes learning to the cognitive architecture of the learners. If technology enhanced learning promotes the formation of effective mental representations and works with the human cognitive system, then the learners will not only be able to acquire information more efficiently, but they will also remember it better and use it. Technology should not be the driving force in shaping e-learning, but rather how that technology can better serve the cognitive system.
This book explores the research frontiers in cognition and learning technology. It provides important theoretical insights into these issues, as well as very practical implications of how to make e-learning more brain friendly and effective
2: Cognition Distributed: How Cognitive Technology Extends our Minds
Our species has been a maker and user of tools for over two million years, but "cognitive technology" began with language. Cognition is thinking, and thinking has been "distributed" for at least the two hundred millennia that we have been using speech to interact and collaborate, allowing us to do collectively far more than any of us could have done individually. The invention of writing six millennia ago and print six centuries ago has distributed cognition still more widely and quickly, among people as well as their texts.
In recent decades something radically new has been happening: Advanced cognitive technologies, especially computers and the Worldwide Web, are beginning to redistribute cognition in unprecedented ways, not only among people and static texts, but among people and dynamical machines. This not only makes possible new forms of human collaboration, but new forms of cognition.
This book examines the nature and prospects of distributed cognition, providing a conceptual framework for understanding it, and showcasing case studies of its development.
3: Cognitive Technologies and the pragmatics of Cognition:
Technology has long been a helpful aid in human cognitive activities. With its growing sophistication and usage technology is now taking a more intrinsic and active role in human cognition. The shift from an external aid to being an internal component of cognitive processing reflects a revolution in technology, cognition, and their interaction. The creation of such ‘cognitive technologies’ transforms the traditional instrumental function of technology to a constitutive role that shapes and defines cognition itself. This book explores the new horizon of these ‘cognitive technologies’ and their interactions with humans.
"This book is a stimulating sampler of an extraordinarily important emerging field. This field will have profound effects not only on how we humans think, feel and behave - but also on what we humans are. Technology can no longer be considered simply a product of human endeavor or a subject of study, but must be understood as providing a context within which we live and function. The chapters herein are of interest to psychologists, computer scientists, neuroscientists and philosophers, and cannot help but open eyes to new possibilities and new realities."
Professor Stephen M. Kosslyn, Director of the Center of Advanced Studies, Stanford University.
"It used to be clear that human cognition was one thing and that technology was another. But in our cyber-era of global networks, multimedia, robots and tools that extend the powers of our eyes, hands and brains it is becoming clear that cognition and technology are much more profoundly interconnected and interactive than we had thought: The demands of our evolutionary past shaped our brains and our cognitive capacities, but now the "tools" we create with those cognitive capacities are drawing upon and unleashing cognitive capacities we did not even know we had. The boundary between what our brains are doing and what our brain-made technology is doing is dissolving. This volume explores this new hybrid, symbiotic world, with chapters by many of its front-line contributors."
Professor Wendy Hall, Head of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton.
"This book explores the ways in which cognitive technologies not only assist humans in their cognitive tasks, but actually become part and parcel of our cognitive activity. Does this intimate relationship bring about significant changes in the scope and nature of human cognition? is the question raised in the book. The philosophical and historical significance of an exploration of this issue in the light of the most recent technological developments is immense; for it addresses, ultimately, the central epistemological question of how our knowing capacity can be improved (or hampered) by the tools our knowing capacity itself develops. For the first time, technology is here envisaged not as a peripheral tool vis-à-vis cognition, but as touching its very kernel."
Professor Marcelo Dascal, Dean of Faculty of Humanities, Department of Philosophy, Tel-Aviv University
For information or enquiries, please e-mail: info@CognitiveConsultantsInternational.com
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