Dimensions of integration in embedded and extended cognitive systems

Abstract

The complementary properties and functions of cognitive artifacts and other external resources are integrated into the human cognitive system to varying degrees. The goal of this paper is to develop some of the tools to conceptualize this complementary integration between agents and artifacts. It does so by proposing a multidimensional framework, including the dimensions of information flow, reliability, durability, trust, procedural transparency, informational transparency, individualization, and transformation. The proposed dimensions are all matters of degree and jointly they constitute a multidimensional space in which situated cognitive systems can be located and have certain dimensional configurations. These dimensions provide a new perspective on the conditions for cognitive extension. They are, however, not meant to provide a set of necessary and sufficient conditions, but to provide a toolbox for investigating the degree and nature of the integration of agent and artifact into "new systemic wholes". The higher a situated system scores on the proposed dimensions, the more functional integration occurs, and the more tightly coupled the system is.

Distributed Cognition and Distributed Morality: Agency, Artifacts and Systems

“…In an embedded cognitive system, an artifact aids and influences cognition but is not part of the cognitive system, whereas in an extended cognitive system, an artifact is part of a cognitive system. Whether an artifact is part of a cognitive system, it has been suggested by a number of philosophers (Sutton 2006;Menary 2007Menary , 2010Sterelny 2010;Heersmink 2015), depends on how it is integrated into the cognitive processes of its user. Thus, using traffic signs to navigate an unfamiliar city may aid and influence cognition, but those signs are not part of an extended cognitive system because they are not deeply integrated into the cognitive processes of their users.…”

“…This integration, in turn, depends on a number of dimensions (Sutton 2006(Sutton , 2010Wilson and Clark 2009;Menary 2010;Sterelny 2010). The dimensions of this spectrum include the kind and intensity of information flow between agent and scaffold, the accessibility of the scaffold, the durability of the coupling between agent and scaffold, the amount of trust a user puts into the information the scaffold provides, the degree of transparency-in-use, the ease with which the information can be interpreted, the amount of personalization, and the amount of cognitive transformation (Heersmink 2015). Cognitive artifacts that rank high on these dimensions are integrated deeper than those that rank low on these dimensions.…”

Lessons and new directions for extended cognition from social and personality psychology

“…Heersmink (2015), drawing on previous attempts (e.g., Clark & Chalmers, 1998;Sterelny, 2010;Sutton, Harris, Keil, & Barnier, 2010;Wilson & Clark, 2009), helpfully proposes an 8-dimensional taxonomy to map the conceptual space between mere coupling and full-blown constitution. The dimensions are:…”

“…3 On Heersmink's (2015) model, for example, extension looks like … … systems with a high-bandwidth, reciprocal information flow, where the artifact is reliably available, the relation between agent and artifact is durable, the information it provides is trustworthy, the artifact is procedurally and informationally transparent, it is individualized or possibly even entrenched, and its representational systems has transformed the brain of its user. (p. 595)…”

Identifying and individuating cognitive systems: a task-based distributed cognition alternative to agent-based extended cognition

“…Second-wave extended cognition theorists thus still owe us a means of identifying and individuating cognitive systems. It is not obvious how the second-wave approach might provide such a means, however, especially as it tends to emphasize that coupling between agents and external resources is a complex, multidimensional affair (Heersmink 2012(Heersmink , 2015, with the result that it becomes difficult to see how the extended cognition theorist might ''draw the line'' in such a way as to prevent the theory from implying that an extended cognitive system pops into existence every time an agent relies to some extent on an external resource (and pops out of existence again as soon as he ceases to rely on it). Distributed cognition, which is likewise prepared to acknowledge short-lived distributed systems composed of temporarily interacting elements, is, as we will see, in the same boat when it comes to cognitive bloat.…”