Distributed Cognition. Fancy words. It’s a fancy concept. But in true ‘me’ form, I’ll strive to share it in simplicity.
Distributed cognition can be summarized and understood as 'a series of distributed elements in an environment whereby there is some social component, in that the components have various and different properties but come together to work as a system of memory primarily, but also of knowledge and understanding’ – in order to achieve a cognitive function’.
Even more basically, distributed cognition is a process of thinking, computing and organizing that makes a system work to accomplish a cognitive task. And embedded is the notion that an effective system of distributed cognition makes a system smarter.
It can get very intricate; there are lots of moving ‘factors’: engineered usage of the environment; socially accessible information; physical representations of information or memory; adaptable or flexible forms of information i.e.: visual, kinetic or auditory; symbolic physical elements i.e.: altars, activity centers and artifacts.
But here instead I’ll provide a real-world example in hopes that tangibility explains better than any theory.
THE HOME-SCHOOL COMMUNICATION SYSTEM A.K.A. ‘ELEMENTARY’ DISTRIBUTED COGNITION (PARDON THE PUN)
My daughter’s school has a system of distributed cognition to manage communication between the school/ teacher and home/ parent. This home-school communication system works to ensure that my daughter is in control of and responsible for communication between home and school, however it is a system that supports her in that process, providing information to teacher and to parent without relying exclusively on her as the sole conveyor or the sole memory source. There are three key components of this system: The Red Folder, The Schoolbag and The Lunchbox.
The Red Folder is a plastic coated folder with two interior pockets, one on the left and another on the right. This Red Folder has spatial references that indicate the role of different kinds of information: the left side of the folder holds documents routing from school to home, while the right side of the folder holds documents routing from home to school. Because of this spatial reference, without having to rely on reading skills, my daughter is able to immediately discern whether there is an action she needs to take i.e.: provide information to parent or teacher, simply by noting whether a side of the folder holds documents. This spatial component of the system also allows parent and teacher to immediately be able to determine whether documents that were intended to be routed were successfully routed. If a document remains in the Red Folder for longer than a day, it becomes an alert to the routing party that communication has not been successful and that investigation is needed. This Red Folder provides social access to information, which accommodates family systems that are varied. In my daughter’s case, she spends half her time with me (mother) and half her time with my ex-husband (father) and his new family (step-mom); she also has a day-time caregiver. The Red Folder serves to make all parties aware of information being transmitted without interrupting its primary role to route information between home and school.
With the Red Folder, my daughter is unequivocally the center of the communication system; while it’s protocols create awareness for the larger group and ensure communication flows across many parties, her involvement is central.
The Red Folder interacts well with another important component of the Home-School Communication System: The Schoolbag. The Schoolbag serves as an important component of this Home-School Communication system. The Schoolbag also carries information between School and Home, by transporting the Red Folder as outlined above, but also because it transports The Lunchbox.
The Lunchbox conveys messages to the student each day when it is accessed, whether that be via a loving note from Mum or the implicit message conveyed by providing a fruit snack instead of cookies. It also conveys information to the lunch room monitors; the level to which it might be considered a healthy or well- packed lunch informs the monitors regarding the level of care being delivered by the home environment and an observed change in the standard of lunch by the monitors might prompt a need to investigate. For the parent in the home environment, The Lunchbox contains artifacts to be viewed at end of day which provide information to the parent: is she eating well, is she eating all components packed, are quantities being packed sufficient.
There are more factors in this system of distributed cognition (but I don’t want to bore any further if that’s a risk factor): there is an activity center in the school environment as well as the home environment and an altar in the home environment, all which bring spatial and time-oriented cues to the system, meaning they indicate spaces and cue to times where and when activities occur and transfers of information happen.
I suspect the school is unaware of the factors they have built into this system or the degree to which they have, perhaps unintentionally, created a system of distributed cognition. But it’s a great system: functional for all parties and supportive of the central user. Some individual teachers at the school have started employing technology to facilitate Home-School Communication – and, while there are clear benefits, I already see risks that may end up degrading the strengths of the ‘low tech’ system that is currently functioning.
This is the potential value of this understanding for you, reader: awareness of these systems functioning in your everyday. What distributed cognition systems are currently functioning in your life? In your workplace? What is driving their effectiveness? Where is the room for improvement? And what risks might be at play with the integration of technology? Awareness is the first step to understanding, change, growth…most of anything good that happens in life.
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