Cognition in the Wild (Bradford Books) Review

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Cognition in the Wild (Bradford Books) ReviewIn early 1997, this book helped change the course of my career.
I study software engineering processes, especially software quality assurance techniques. I'd been troubled by the linear, cartesian reasoning we use in our field to justify some practices and deprecate others. What Hutchins did for me is open the door to a whole different way of thinking about cognitive processes in relation to technology. Up to the moment I was drawn to the interesting title on the shelf of a Barnes and Noble bookstore, I had only a vague idea that there are people who study how other people think and make decisions. Since then, I've discovered interesting ideas about how to organize and train software testers from lots of different fields. But it all started with Cognition in the Wild.
What's so special about Cognition in the Wild? I think there are a few factors at work:
- Hutchins style of writing is personable and readable.
- His conclusions are supported by vivid and detailed accounts from the bridge of a warship. I felt like I was there, with him.
- His ideas about naturally situated cognition are so immediately applicable to any system where a group of people are producing an intellectual product.
- His description of the paradigmatic differences between Western and Micronesian navigation practice helped me make sense of similar fundamental differences among factions in my own field.
Since I discovered this stuff, I've oriented my SQA process work squarely toward helping people think better in groups-- a social cognition focus.Cognition in the Wild (Bradford Books) OverviewEdwin Hutchins combines his background as an anthropologist and an openocean racing sailor and navigator in this account of how anthropological methods canbe combined with cognitive theory to produce a new reading of cognitive science. Histheoretical insights are grounded in an extended analysis of ship navigation - itscomputational basis, its historical roots, its social organization, and the detailsof its implementation in actual practice aboard large ships. The result is anunusual interdisciplinary approach to cognition in culturally constituted activitiesoutside the laboratory - "in the wild."Hutchins examines a set of phenomena thathave fallen in the cracks between the established disciplines of psychology andanthropology, bringing to light a new set of relationships between culture andcognition. The standard view is that culture affects the cognition of individuals.Hutchins argues instead that cultural activity systems have cognitive properties oftheir own that are different from the cognitive properties of the individuals whoparticipate in them. Each action for bringing a large naval vessel into port, forexample, is informed by culture: the navigation team can be seen as a cognitive andcomputational system.Introducing Navy life and work on the bridge, Hutchins makes aclear distinction between the cognitive properties of an individual and thecognitive properties of a system. In striking contrast to the usual laboratory tasksof research in cognitive science, he applies the principal metaphor of cognitivescience - cognition as computation (adopting David Marr's paradigm) - to thenavigation task. After comparing modern Western navigation with the method practicedin Micronesia, Hutchins explores the computational and cognitive properties ofsystems that are larger than an individual. He then turns to an analysis of learningor change in the organization of cognitive systems at several scales.Hutchins'sconclusion illustrates the costs of ignoring the cultural nature of cognition,pointing to the ways in which contemporary cognitive science can be transformed bynew meanings and interpretations.A Bradford Book

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