Situated Congnition
The revelation of this concept has added new dimensions to this work. This is not so much an explanation of the concept itself as a discussion of the connections, which I'm starting to find overwhelming. I now have a field with which I'm innately conversant, that now has much foundational material readily available, through which I can communicate with other scholars in the business. The field, although consisting of views from many different disciplines besides cognitive science, such as psychology, anthropology and liguistics, bears directly on sociology - communication and culture, in particular - yet the affect seems to be completely unnoted by anyone but me. I have a huge source of embellishment work that expands the scope of my subject as easily as does critical theory a la Harrigan, Deleuze and others.
But, enough of that. So, what's with situated cognition?
The concept is wrapped around the notion that cognition is not an insulated process inside the braincase. Drawing on my wonderful new book (as of 2010.07.12), The Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition, the subject encompasses three central ideas:
First, cognition depends not just on the brain but also on the body (the embodiment thesis). Second, cognitive activity routinely exploits structure in the natural and social envrionment (the embedding thesis). Third, the boundaries of cognition extend beyond the boundaries of individual organisms (the extension thesis). Each of these theses contributes to a picture of mental activity as dependent on the situation or context in which it occurs, whether that situation or context is relatively local (as in the case of embodiment) or relatively global (as in the case of embedding and extension). It is this picture of the mind that lies at the heart of research on situated cognition. (p. 3)
Page 3! It's a start.
The connections to the toolshop effect are there. I've already gone some distance in Cognitive Extension although, at this time, I've got a ton of writing to do on it. Everyone from Innis, McLuhan and Gardiner to Clark and even Etienne Wenger (with his work in communities of practice) are all involved.