The cognitive integration of scientific instruments: information, situated cognition, and scientific practice

Abstract

Researchers in the biological and biomedical sciences, particularly those working in laboratories, use a variety of artifacts to help them perform their cognitive tasks. This paper analyses the relationship between researchers and cognitive artifacts in terms of integration. It first distinguishes different categories of cognitive artifacts used in biological practice on the basis of their informational properties. This results in a novel classification of scientific instruments, conducive to an analysis of the cognitive interactions between researchers and artifacts. It then uses a multidimensional framework in line with complementarity-based extended and distributed cognition theory to conceptualize how deeply instruments in different informational categories are integrated into the cognitive systems of their users. The paper concludes that the degree of integration depends on various factors, including the amount of informational malleability, the intensity and kind of information flow between agent and artifact, the trustworthiness of the information, the procedural and informational transparency, and the degree of individualisation.

Conceptual engineering and conceptual extension in science

“…It is important not to confuse this assessment of the debate with a superficially similar position on which there can fail to be a fact of the matter about extended cognition. Richard Heersmink (2016) argues that the extent to which artefacts should be seen as 'part of' the cognitive systems of the agent depends on how 'integrated' artefact and agent are, and this, in turn, depends on a range of factors. Artefacts that score sufficiently highly on sufficiently many of these criteria count as part of the cognitive system of the agent.…”

Extended, Distributed, and Predictive: Sketches of a Generative Theory of Interaction for HCI

“…Analytically, we can begin to look at how well certain extensions extend cognition and how this might vary across time by [14,15]. How well do these cognitive functions embed into the cognitive niche?…”

Varieties of Cognitive Integration

“…Menary (2006) provides one approach to this question. See also Heersmink (2016), Palermos (2014; 2017), Carter et al (2014), Kallestrup and Sprevak (2014), and Pritchard (2010). …”