Premium
How Do Engineering Scientists Think? Model‐Based Simulation in Biomedical Engineering Research Laboratories
Author(s) -
Nersessian Nancy J.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
topics in cognitive science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.191
H-Index - 56
eISSN - 1756-8765
pISSN - 1756-8757
DOI - 10.1111/j.1756-8765.2009.01032.x
Subject(s) - artifact (error) , cognition , computer science , inference , socially distributed cognition , cognitive science , function (biology) , management science , data science , epistemology , artificial intelligence , psychology , engineering , philosophy , neuroscience , evolutionary biology , biology
Designing, building, and experimenting with physical simulation models are central problem‐solving practices in the engineering sciences. Model‐based simulation is an epistemic activity that includes exploration, generation and testing of hypotheses, explanation, and inference. This paper argues that to interpret and understand how these simulation models function in creating knowledge and technologies requires construing problem solving as accomplished by a researcher–artifact system. It draws on and further develops the framework of “distributed cognition” to interpret data collected in ethnographic and cognitive‐historical studies of two biomedical engineering research laboratories, and articulates the notion of distributed model‐based cognition to answer the question posed in the title.