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Edwin Hutchins

Cognition in the Wild (A Bradford Book) Paperback – September 1, 1996

by Edwin Hutchins (Author)

4.4 22 ratings

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Edwin Hutchins combines his background as an anthropologist and an open ocean racing sailor and navigator in this account of how anthropological methods can be combined with cognitive theory to produce a new reading of cognitive science. His theoretical insights are grounded in an extended analysis of ship navigation—its computational basis, its historical roots, its social organization, and the details of its implementation in actual practice aboard large ships. The result is an unusual interdisciplinary approach to cognition in culturally constituted activities outside the laboratory—"in the wild."

Hutchins examines a set of phenomena that have fallen in the cracks between the established disciplines of psychology and anthropology, bringing to light a new set of relationships between culture and cognition. The standard view is that culture affects the cognition of individuals. Hutchins argues instead that cultural activity systems have cognitive properties of their own that are different from the cognitive properties of the individuals who participate in them. Each action for bringing a large naval vessel into port, for example, is informed by culture: the navigation team can be seen as a cognitive and computational system.

Introducing Navy life and work on the bridge, Hutchins makes a clear distinction between the cognitive properties of an individual and the cognitive properties of a system. In striking contrast to the usual laboratory tasks of research in cognitive science, he applies the principal metaphor of cognitive science—cognition as computation (adopting David Marr's paradigm)—to the navigation task. After comparing modern Western navigation with the method practiced in Micronesia, Hutchins explores the computational and cognitive properties of systems that are larger than an individual. He then turns to an analysis of learning or change in the organization of cognitive systems at several scales. Hutchins's conclusion illustrates the costs of ignoring the cultural nature of cognition, pointing to the ways in which contemporary cognitive science can be transformed by new meanings and interpretations.

A Bradford Book

Print length

402 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Bradford Books
Publication date

September 1, 1996
Grade level

12 and up
Reading age

18 years and up
Dimensions

10.16 x 6.7 x 0.73 inches
ISBN-10

0262581469
ISBN-13

978-0262581462
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Editorial Reviews

Review

This timely work has the potential to make important contributions to cognitive science, artificial intelligence and computer supported cooperative work communities. It addresses difficult problems of great importance with novelty and creativity. The general area of situated cognition is a lively and important one, spanning areas as diverse as anthropology, robotics, and office information systems. There are two fundamental persepctives that are central to these efforts: that cognition must be studied in realistic contexts, and when viewed in these contexts much of what we consider intelligence is really not in the head but out in the world. Given these persepctives, there are two research questions that need to be addressed - how can we go about studying cognition in the real world and how does this affect the way we study what is going on in heads of the people the way we study what is going on in heads of the people embedded in these contexts? Hutchins tackles both of these questions in new and intriguing ways.

―James Martin, Computer Science Department, University of Colorado

From the Back Cover

Edwin Hutchins combines his background as an anthropologist and an open-ocean racing sailor in this account of how anthropological methods can be combined with cognitive theory to produce an new reading of cognitive science. Hutchins examines a set of phenomena that have fallen between psychology and anthropology, bringing to light a new set of relationships between culture and cognition. His conclusion illustrates the costs of ignoring the cultural nature of cognition, pointing to the ways in which contemporary cognitive science can be transformed by new meanings and interpretations.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bradford Books; Revised ed. edition (September 1, 1996)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 402 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0262581469
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0262581462
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
Grade level ‏ : ‎ 12 and up
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.55 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 10.16 x 6.7 x 0.73 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #560,390 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #484 in Neuroscience (Books)
- #971 in Medical Cognitive Psychology
- #1,509 in Cognitive Psychology (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.4 22 ratings

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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5

22 global ratings

5 star		67%
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Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 25, 2022

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Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 29, 2013

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This is the founding text for the theory of distributed cognition, written by "cognitive anthropologist" Edwin Hutchins, who develops his theory of how thinking is offloaded onto the environment and shared among groups of people through an in-depth account of work and life aboard a modern ship. A "must-read" for anyone interested in distributed cognition and its application to workplaces and taskscapes, from the kitchen and the garden to the theater and the university.

8 people found this helpful

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Nita C.

Three Stars

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 27, 2016

Interesting book!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 23, 2017

Verified Purchase

Classic example of cognitive ethnography at its best!

One person found this helpful

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John Balch

Simply Incredible

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 16, 2017

One of the most important books written in cognitive science and anthropology in the last century. Every chapter is full of creativity and insight as Hutchins works his way towards a theory of distributed cognition. If you are a researcher in the behavioral or social sciences this should be sitting on your bookshelf, heavily annotated.

One person found this helpful

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Andy T.

this book is absolutely stupid and ridiculous

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 18, 2015

To those of you actually taking Hutchin's class or COGS 102 series, this book is absolutely stupid and ridiculous. Has no real world applications. Talks about boats. Navigation systems, and more boats. The book is beyond not usable in his class. If Hutchins wasn't more condescending in person, this book reflects it more. It treats you like some kind of idiot about boats. Boats, boats, boats. ESPECIALLY NAVY BOATS. This book is full of himself, literally and figuratively, as it explores his life as a "cognitive ethnographer" on his journey on boats. Very egoistic tone in book. Don't see how this relates to the class at UCSD. Had this class 8 years ago, and today all my sister took away from his class are boats. Can I get woo0t-w000t for boats. -_-'.

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

Christoph Pingel

A fresh and valuable approach

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 15, 2002

I decided to read that book because of its frequent appearance in other highly interesting scriptures on 'situated cognition', most notably in Andy Clark's "Being There".
It's a book about the cognitive task of ship navigation, but at the same time it's a book about distributed cognition in general, including organisational learning, the question of representation, and other highly relevant topics.
The field of cognitive science is still a place of almost religious debate about turing machines, problem solvers, representation, intelligence and other theoretical concepts that have in common that they can be discussed, but usually not observed directly. One could easily gain the impression that there was some kind of uncertainty principle special to cognitive science that prevented us from watching "the mind".
It's the biggest strength and achievement of Hutchins' book that he came up with the elegant solution to watch "the mind" by observing humans deal with problems using the cognitive tools (systems of representation and 'real' tools as well) that have developed over the centuries. It's almost ironic to see how well this works. By providing further evidence that cognition is generally a distributed task that is done by interacting with cognitive tools, Hutchins proves to be a philosopher in the Wittgensteinian sense who "shows the fly the way from the fly bottle (of mentalism)."

32 people found this helpful

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Client d'Amazon

Très satisfait

Reviewed in France 🇫🇷 on June 3, 2017

Verified Purchase

Excellent envoi pr un livre culte en sciences cognitives. Très satisfaisant à tous points de vues. Merci pr la qualité

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