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The Distribution of Representation
Author(s) -
OSBECK LISA M.,
NERSESSIAN NANCY J.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal for the theory of social behaviour
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.615
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1468-5914
pISSN - 0021-8308
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-5914.2006.00301.x
Subject(s) - atlanta , library science , citation , sociology , history , computer science , archaeology , metropolitan area
Recent cognitive science frameworks depicting cognitive processing as 'distributed’ across persons and environments require new ways of conceptualizing representation. That is, if representation is to be retained as an explanatory concept, it must foreground the interactive participation of persons and of different representational formats, rather than remain an internal or external phenomenon. This paper is directed towards such an account. It draws upon findings in a wide-scale, multi-year study investigating cognitive practices of research scientists in two university research laboratories. The research is guided by the assumption that cognitive practices generally and science practices specifically comprise a complex system of persons, devices, artifacts, instruments, texts, and traditions. We use an interdisciplinary methodological approach that combines ethnographic observations and analyses with cognitive-historical analysis. Here we present two interrelated interpretive notions emerging from our analysis that have particular relevance to the project of providing an account of representation compatible with the assumption that cognitive processing is distributed. Keywords: representation, distributed cognition, model-based reasoning, ethnographic methods, practices ,3