Distributed cognition. Special issue of Pragmatics & Cognition 14:2 (2006)

Cognition is thinking, and thinking has been distributed for millions of years – for as long as our species has had language and tools to help us interact and collaborate and achieve far more than any of us could have done individually. But something radically new is happening to distributed cognition in recent years. With advanced technologies and especially computers and the Worldwide Web cognition can be distributed in new ways. New technologies enable new ways of interaction and distribution of cognition not only among people, but also between people and machines. This not only opens new ways to coordinate activities, but creates opportunities for new modalities of cognition to emerge. This Special Issue examines the nature of the phenomenon of distributed cognition, asks whether and how it is possible, proposes conceptual frameworks for its study and development, presents state-of-the-art technologies in this field, and looks forward at its prospects.