Cognition and tool use

Cognition and tool use : the blacksmith at work
Keller, Charles M.
Keller, Janet Dixon
1996
Cambridge - New York, Cambridge University Press. 200 p.
Resumen: Taking their inspiration from the ancient skill of blacksmithing, the authors of this book take a fresh look at the mental processes involved in the accomplishment of goals. They analyze the way people apply what they know in order to reach a particular end, whether it is material or conceptual, routine or novel. The authors, anthropologists Janet and Charles Keller, provide an account of human accomplishment based on a detailed study of contemporary blacksmiths. The cognitive realm of blacksmithing is of particular interest because it relies on visual imagery and physical virtuosity rather than verbal logic, the conventional yardstick of cognition.
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Cognition in the wild

Cognition in the wild
Hutchins, Edwin
1995
Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press. 381 p.
Resumen: 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.
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