1. Comparing the Two Theories
Computational Theory of Mind
Meaning-making or information processing?
Is Computational Theory of Mind just a fancier form of behaviorism?
Unit of analysis: What gets left out?
Distributed Cognition

2. Computational Theory of Mind
Original Goals
To formally describe the meanings humans make of their worlds & then hypothesize what meaning-making processes might be involved
To replace behaviorism, not simply reform it by adding a bit of mentalism
Five Key Features
Posits a level of analysis wholly separate from the biological or neurological
Faith that central to any understanding of the human mind is the computer
Deliberate decision to de-emphasize certain factors that may be important but complicate things (emotion, history/culture, role of context)
Faith in interdisciplinary studies (philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, linguistics, anthropology, neuroscience)
Claim that a key ingredient in contemporary cognitive psych. is the agenda of issues which have long exercised epistemologists in the Western philosophical tradition

3. Meaning-Making or Computation of Information?
Original Goal A. To formally describe the meanings humans make of their worlds & then hypothesize what meaning-making processes might be involved
Key Feature 2. Faith that central to any understanding of the human mind is the computer
Mind-as-computer as the dominant metaphor
Preoccupation with Models – Understanding of human cognition reduced to the ability to simulate some cognitive process with a computer program
Yet…Information is indifferent to meaning (system processes the same regardless of whether the ‘information’ being computed is Shakespeare’s sonnets or numbers from a random table)
Emphasis shifted from construction of meaning to processing of information

4. Is Computational Theory of Mind Just a Fancier Form of Behaviorism?
Original Goal B. To replace behaviorism, not simply reform it by adding a bit of mentalism
input & output replace stimuli & responses
Outcome information – gleaned from current situation through monitoring processes (e.g., metacognition) – replaces reinforcement
Mental states – such as believing, desiring, intending, grasping a meaning – are left out

5. Unit of Analysis: What Gets Left Out?
Key Feature 3. Deliberate decision to de-emphasize certain factors that may be important but complicate things
What Gets Left Out?
Emotion
Body
Environment + Tools & Artifacts
Social & Cultural Context
Are these aspects important?
Emotion – Phineas Gage in 1848 (Damasio)
Body – Embodiment Theory, Metaphors
Environment + Tools & Artifacts – Affordances & Constraints, Extended Cognition
Social & Cultural Context – Vygotsky, symbols are social

6. Distributed Cognition
Cognition is (inter)action in the social & material world.
Unit of analysis: Cognition not just in the head; rather, stretched over intact activity systems
Activity systems –  structures of interactions btwn individuals and their social & material contexts
Such activity systems include:
Individual person
Social relationships
Physical and temporal contexts
Symbolic & material resources
Historical change
Within such systems, cognition is “a complex social phenomenon…distributed — stretched over, not divided among — mind, body, activity and culturally organized settings (which include other actors)” (Lave, 1988).

7. Example:
Imagine a teacher creating a science activity for a middle school classroom…
Assumptions of Computational Theory of Mind
Cognition is bounded, dependent but autonomous system
Hence, factoring assumption
Dualist ontological tradition
Assumptions of Distributed Cognition Theory
Basic organizing structure: “communities of practice”
Meaning evolves through enculturation
Meaning of regular pattern of interaction w/x
Identity: Changes in knowing = changes in being
Non-Dualist Ontological Tradition
Learning = progress along trajectories of participation & growth of identity