Cognitive Ethnography

UCSD Maps Group (maps.ucsd.edu)

2007-04-17T14:27:00.000-07:00

Here are the group members for the UCSD maps Group

Nick 925-457-3187
Anthony 626-227-5270
Chrissy 619-962-8085
Ken-949-280-7858

We will be focusing on revising the current maps.ucsd.edu website so that it is more clear for campus visitors as well as for faculty and students. Our group just started a blog:

ucsdmaps.blogspot.com

We plan on meeting at 4:30pm on Mondays at the Sun God Lounge. New groups members are welcome!

Heath and Jon Hindmarsh

2007-03-14T22:19:00.000-07:00

Heath and Jon Hindmarsh:
Configuring Action in Objects: From Mutual Space to Media Space
Two main topics of the article

How aspects of the material environment are rendered momentarily intelligible in and through interaction
The ways in which objects provide a resource for the recognition of the actions and activities of others.

How the material world is rendered meaningful

The scene is shaped, rendered intelligible, with regard to the resources provided by John and the sequentially appropriate activity, discovering and displaying the position of the train in question.

Discovering and seeing the object, or rather constituting one aspect of the physical environment in a particular way, engenders sequentially relevant actions by both John, Graham, and presumably at some later date, by the caller himself.

Objects as resource for the recognition of the actions and activities of others

The object and its perception is separated or fragmented from the very ways in which it is rendered noticeable, and thereby stands before the participants as an “objective order of social fact.”

The characterization may consist of a train number or something funny. The characterization informs the ways in which the environment is inspected by the coparticipant and how the particular object is discovered

Nomura and Hutchins

2007-03-14T22:16:00.000-07:00

Nomura and Hutchins:
The multimodal production of common ground understandings

Iconic gesture-gesture that is representative of a specific concept
Environmentally coupled gesture-A gesture that takes on meaning as it relates to the environment where it is produced
Juxtaposition of meaning-combining multiple modes of communication to communicate an idea

slide 5

2007-03-13T23:16:00.000-07:00

slide 4

2007-03-13T23:15:00.000-07:00

slide 3

2007-03-13T23:13:00.000-07:00

Slide 2

2007-03-13T23:12:00.000-07:00

Presentation slide 1

2007-03-13T23:06:00.000-07:00

6a Detailed analysis example

2007-03-02T20:18:00.001-08:00

6a Detailed analysis example

2007-03-02T20:01:00.000-08:00

Project 6a Advice

2007-03-02T19:40:00.000-08:00

For Wednesday 3/7
Collect at least 15 minutes of video: I would recommend getting more than this though. I would try to find an activity that you could get a half hour of footage from or more. Just because you film for an hour doesn't mean that you will have to use it, but if you only get 15 minutes of footage and 12 minutes of it is hard to hear then you'll have to hope that those last 3 are really really good. By taking more footage you are going to make your life easier. Getting an hour of an interesting activity on film is easy trying to write a paper on 15 minutes of boring or inaudible footage is hard. So get a good amount of data on film choose the best part and use that.

Index: You should have an entry at least every minute, more than that is better though and at some parts you might want to do every 10 seconds. If you include entries less than every minute that will be too infrequent. Also don't do the index based on the minute add entry at the points were something interesting was said or done.

1:05 Ben points at knot
1:30 Kathrine takes rope and starts to instruct Ben
1:45 Ben uses cool orienting gesture at rope
1:55 Kathrine gives bask rope to Ben
2:45 Kathrine uses fictive description of rope
2:55 Points at parts of rope while describing function
3:20 Shows knot to Hutchins

Something like this would be good

Detailed analysis: on a clip or clips that total at least 30 seconds do a detailed analysis like the analysis in project 4. Also include information like gesture orientation and the participants interaction with artifacts. I will post the examples that we looked at in class to help provide some guidance on this

Conversation analysis of cultural models

2007-02-21T19:33:00.000-08:00

Question on the transcription symbol

2007-02-13T16:25:00.000-08:00

I found a really good page for the transcription symbols we are using.

It has a better explanation of the = symbol. It says that the = symbol "'Equals’ signs mark the immediate ‘latching’ of successive talk, whether of one or more speakers, with no interval". I think that this means if I were to follow up what someone said with no pause then we would use the = to show that there was no pause.

Transcription Software

2007-02-13T14:09:00.000-08:00

Here is the transcription software that Jason found.

http://www.nch.com.au/scribe/

Thanks Jason

Project 4 Advice

2007-02-07T16:23:00.000-08:00

Here are some words of advice from professor Hutchins on the upcoming project:

It is NOT necessary to repeat project 3 to do project 4 or any of the following projects. I have found through experience that following through on project 3 is an easy way to get a good interview. However, sometimes that does not work out. I have also had great interviews done with people who had nothing to do with the student's proj 3. One student interviewed her grandmother about grandma's experiences during WWII. That turned out to be a great interview filled with interesting cultural models.

I hope this is helpful, if you are still confused doing the reading should help and we will also go over this project in discussion.

Advice on Photo Format

2007-02-06T19:21:00.000-08:00

If you aren't going to add marking, highlighting and inscriptions to the photos then you could just staple them to the back. If you plan on adding any marks to the images (which I strongly suggest doing) add those as separate illustration. They can be a regular low resolution printouts in the document, then include the photos separately stapled to the back. The main point is that you make it easy for us to see the phenomenon that you are explaining, so reference the photos in the way that makes this process most efficient.

Try to turn in some that are good quality prints. They don't need to be from a photo studio or on high gloss paper, but make sure they show the subject in good detail.

Myers, “Molecular Embodiments”

2007-02-06T16:40:00.000-08:00

the objects of molecular biology are becoming tangible and workable in new ways. With this shift from reading and writing one-dimensional genetic codes to modeling and interpreting the functions of three-dimensional and temporally dynamic protein molecules come new practical and conceptual hurdles for researchers and their students.
Moving Past Latour?
Emoboyment of knowledge
“Diane carries more than a ‘mental image’ of what a molecule should look like in her head: seeing, feeling, and moving with the chemical constraints of the molecule, she has embodied molecular forms”
Thick description (Geertz, 1973)
“requires attending to the corporeal and affective entanglements of researchers with available concepts and modeling media, and with the visualization machinery they entrain on living substances.”

2007-02-06T10:07:00.000-08:00

Photolab Ethnography

2007-02-06T08:46:00.000-08:00

Project 3 Pictures

2007-02-04T15:57:00.000-08:00

I narrowed it down to these four pictures, I was hoping for a bit of help in deciding which ones? They're kind of big, so I shrunk them down. Click on them to see the full-size versions.

2007-02-02T15:45:00.000-08:00

Here are some of the
pictures I took for Project three. Hopefully we can analyze these in class and see what people find.

How a Cockpit Remembers its Speeds (Hutchins)

2007-02-01T11:15:00.000-08:00

Key Words and Definitions

Classical Theory has given us very powerful models of the information processing properties of individual human agents.
- Asking a set of questions to analyze the mental processes which organized the behavior of the individual
- How representations are transformed, combined, and propagated through the system
Hutchins says, you can apply this to a unit of analysis that is larger than an individual person.

I. Representations in the Memory System and Their Properties

Flaps and Stats
1. Function: Change the shape and area of the wing, which affects the speed of the plane.
2. Properties: Malleable
The Spoken Representation
1. Function: Transmits the information from the ASI (airspeed indicator) to the pilots
2. Properties: Endures only during its production, temporal.
The Speed Card
1. Function: Contains the weight interval with the appropriate speeds permanently printed on the card.
2. Properties: Semi permanent.
Speed Bugs
1. Function: Indicates the desired speed on approach given an amount of fuel.
2. Properties: Attributes meaning to visual areas of the speed dials, enables cognitive distribution
Salmon Bug
1. Function: Provides the pilots an indication of how well the plane is tracking the speed target.
2. Properties: Physical, dynamic.
Airspeed Indicator Instrument (ASI)
1. Function: Displays the speed of the plane
2. Properties: Dynamic, physical.
Fuel Quantity Panel
1. Function: Displays the amount of fuel the plane contains
2. Properties: Dynamic, physical.

II. Additional Key Concepts

Situated Seeing
Distribution of cognitive labor
Robustness through redundant processing
Control through propagation of representational state
Memory in a socio-technical system
Amortization of complexity

Three different descriptions of the memory process
1. Procedural (the sort of description a pilot might provide)
2. Second and third descriptions are cognitive in that they concern representations and processes that transform those representations.

The Dialectic of Arithmetic in Grocery Shopping

2007-02-01T11:14:00.001-08:00

Key Words and Definitions

Dialectic: The art or practice of logical discussion as employed in investigating the truth of a theory or opinion.

Arithmetic Problem Solving:

Basically, the past experiences and beliefs of the problem solver and what the individual is doing, what should happen in the course of doing it, and what the setting is in which it is taking place.
Shaped by the broader activity in which it occurs
What are the general characteristics of problem solving when something happens in the course of shopping that appears problematic to the shopper? And how does the character of problem solving within grocery shopping specifically affect the nature of arithmetic activity?

The integral nature of activity in relation with contexts
Mutual interdependence of mental and physical activity

Arena: A physically, economically, politically, and socially organized space-in-time. It is outside of, yet encompasses the individual, providing a higher-order institutional framework within which the setting is organized. Not context dependent!

Setting: A repeatedly ordered and edited version of the arena. Not simply a mental map of the individual, but also has an independent, physical character and a potential for realization only in activity.

Barker says, the environment is seen to consist of highly structured, improbable arrangement of objects and events which coerce behavior in accordance with their own dynamic patterning. The environment dictates a certain type of behavior, and that the environment sets a behavior setting, called synomorphy (rules of the game). Activity is reduced to a passive response to the setting.
Lave says, settings are not an objective phenomenon. Experienced differently by individual.

Activity: Dialectically constituted with the setting (is generated out of, and generates, the setting).

They don’t exist in realized form except in relation to each other

Rationalization: Maintaining the contradiction between choice and the necessity of choosing. It structures the arithmetic activity.

In the shopping context, it is a routine, and the shopper is faced with an abundant amount of choices. This routine and contradictory quality of the routine choices, and the dialectical form of activity in setting, together shape the rationalizing character of arithmetic calculation in the supermarket.

Gap-Closing: A dialectical movement between the expected shape of the solution and the information between the expected shape of the solution and the information and calculation devices at hand, all in pursuit of a solution that is germane to the activity that gave it shape to the first place.

The solution shape is generated out of the decision process up to an interruption or snag. The act of identifying a problem changes the salience of setting characteristics.
Eg: When I am working in the kitchen, and realize that I don’t have a pot. What will I do instead? How do I work around this problem?
An ongoing process of comparing the current state of knowledge of the problem and the current definition of the solution.

Neisser - Memory: What are the Important Questions?

2007-02-01T11:12:00.002-08:00

Laboratory procedures obscure real characteristics of memory.
Psychologists are not interested in such questions primarily because they believe they are doing something more important. They are working toward a general theory of memory, a scientific understanding of its underlying mechanisms, more fundamental and far-reaching than any research on worldly questions could possibly be. (3)
If X is an interesting or socially significant aspect of memory, then psychologists have hardly ever studied X. (2)

Ethology: Study of animals/organisms in their natural environments.

Ethnography: A branch of anthropology dealing with the scientific description of individual cultures

Quote: “I’ve never tried to block out the memories of the past, even though some are painful. I don’t understand people who hide from their past. Everything you live through helps to make you the person you are now.” –Sophia Loren (Italian film Actress, 1934)

Different types of past memories:

Everyone uses the past to define themselves (6)
Past experiences are recalled in search of self-improvement (7)
Personal memories achieve a kind of public importance (7): legal testimonies, eyewitnesses
Remembering events secondhand (that of friends, etc.)

Visualization and Cognition (Latour)

2007-02-01T11:12:00.001-08:00

Key Words and Definitions

There is a “grand dichotomy” between prescientific and scientific cultures, which should be replaced with uncertain and unexpected divides.
- This dichotomy is merely a border but not any natural boundary, but are maintained to prevent absurd consequences of relativism
- Changes in the capitalistic mode of production, dubbed “materialist”, explain the ways which we prove, argue and believe things.
- The only way to escape simplistic relativist position is to look at explanations that take writing and imaging into account – also known as inscriptions!

Agonistic: The overcoming of an argument.

Inscriptions: writing and images which help make agonistic situations more favorable. The following traits should not be isolated from one another:

Mobile: They can move around. (eg: maps, diagrams, Petri dishes)
Immutable: When they move around, they are kept in their state.
Flat: There is nothing hidden or convoluted (eg: a diagram, chart, graph)
Modifiable scales: Can be reconstructed in size without changing its internal proportions.
Reproducible: Spread at little cost.
Recombinable: Since they are mobile, flat, reproducible, and variable, this is made possible.
Superimposable: Multiple images can be recombined of different scales and origins. (think of Google maps)
Able to be made part of a written text
Able to be merged with geometry: You cannot measure the sun, but you can measure a photograph of the sun with a ruler.

Optical Consistency: No matter from what distance and angle an object is seen, it is always possible to transfer it – to translate it – and to obtain the same object at a different size as seen from another position.
1. Why is this important? Because it establishes what is called a “linear perspective framework”, where you can allow perspectives to move through space and return where it came from.
2. It allows the shift of senses to vision in an agonistic situation (you can look at a map and determine certain things about it, although you can’t smell or touch it, but the absent things are now being able to be discussed.)

Visual Culture: How a culture sees the world and makes it visible.
1. These visual cultures are not supposed to be “objective”, but rather, have optical consistency.
2. Sort of like Professional Vision (Goodwin)

Professional Vision (Goodwin)

2007-02-01T11:10:00.002-08:00

Key Words and Definitions

Discursive Practices: Used by members of a profession to shape events in the domains subject to their professional scrutiny. Includes coding schemes, highlighting, and graphical representations.

Coding Scheme: Transforms the world into the categories and events that are relevant to the work of the profession.
1. Making a classification of something (eg: Putting a section of clothes as t-shirts, another as sweaters).
Highlighting: Dividing a domain of scrutiny into a figure and a ground so that events relevant to the activity of the moment stand out.
1. Ways of shaping now only one’s own perception but also that of others. (eg: This paper)
Graphical Representations: External representations of distinctive characteristics of the material world to organize phenomena.

Basically, the process of how professional vision comes to be.
This includes the theories, artifacts, and bodies of expertise that distinguish it from other professions.

Domain of Scrutiny: An area of interest in the context of the work practices.

Object of Knowledge: Emerges through the interplay between a domain of scrutiny and a set of discursive practices.

Contested Vision: Perceptions that are not treated as idiosyncratic phenomena but as socially organized perceptual frameworks shared within the police profession.
1. Example given in class about Rodney King. Police have a certain view at which they can convince others during trial that what they did was professionally appropriate.

Ulric Neisser: Memory: what are the important questions?

2007-01-31T15:48:00.000-08:00

What is ecological validity?
The extent to which the conditions of an experiment represent real world phenomenon

How does Neisser define memory?
“Memory” in general does not exist
It is a left over concept from medieval psychology
Theories of memory should reflect human experience

What are the important questions identified by Neisser?
Are there functionally different types of memory
If so what are they
How do we use past experience in meeting the present and future

Why has academic psychology NOT addressed these questions?
Because they believe that the lab work is more important
Developing general principles
Because it’s hard
The drunk and the lamp post

What brought about the demise of classical learning theory?
The findings of the ethologists showed that the contrived results that learning theorists were developing in the lab could not be usefully applied in the naturalistic setting

How can Neisser claim that perhaps “memory” in general does not exist?
Memory” in general does not exist
It is a left over concept from medieval psychology
Theories of memory should reflect human experience

What must we do in order to answer these important questions?
Go into “the wild”
We need to observe individuals in their habitats
Stop trying to use research to support theories instead of explaining behavior

Bruno Latour: Visualization and Cognition

2007-01-30T22:14:00.000-08:00

Properties of Inscriptions

Mobile- Allows the users to take phenomenon from the world to a different domain to be reasoned with
Immutable- Doesn’t get destroyed, change
Readable- Presented in a way so that it can be deconstructed
Combinable- By allowing them to be presented in conjunction we can make better conclusions
Guide, Poster, Text books, math and words

The agonistic encounter

The process of challenging another’s opinion through the use of inscriptions
Examples:
Athletic referendum
Tyco Brahe
Court case

How a Cockpit Remembers it's Speed

2007-01-30T22:09:00.000-08:00

What are the BIG ideas from the article?

Hutchins goes about explaining, in his characteristically detailed style, the cognitive phenomenon involved in maintaining the correct speed of a passenger airliner. He sets the cockpit system as the unit of analysis, as opposed to the individuals in the cockpit, to develop the theory that cognitive activity is not exclusively internal and is supported and created by the world in an active environment. To develop this point he demonstrates how the internal cognitive activity cannot account for the speed of the aircraft being remembered, but can only be understood by examining how the pilots coordinate their activity, technologies and media that represent the process to contribute to the larger cockpit system. He concludes that the only effective way to view the phenomenon of speed maintenance in the plane is as an emergent property of the entire cockpit system.

“What is new is the examination of the role of the material media in which representations are embodied, and in the physical processes that propagate representations across media”

What are the representations in the memory system?

Flap Handle- Controls the pitch of the flaps, which changes the speed of the plane.
Spoken Representation- Transmits the information from the AIS to the pilots
Speed Card- The desired speed on approach given an amount of fuel
Speed Bugs- Indicate the desired speed for the plane on approach as stated on the speed card
Airspeed Indicator Instrument (ASI)- Displays the speed of the plane
Fuel Quantity Panel- Amount of fuel the plane contains

What are the properties of the representation?

Flap Handle- Malleable
Spoken Representation- ephemeral and endures only in its production.
Speed Card- Semi-permanent
Speed Bugs- Malleable
Airspeed Indicator Instrument (ASI)- Physical dynamic
Fuel Quantity Panel- Physical dynamic

Additional terminology to know:

• Re-representations
• Information trajectories
• Coordination of representations
• Redundant storage of representations; redundant processing
• Division of labor
• Distribution of access to information
• Cross-checking

Project 3 Photos-Jason with synth

2007-01-27T13:50:00.001-08:00

Project 3 Photos-Palua Nias Kids

2007-01-26T23:15:00.000-08:00

Project 3 Photos-Zhongwei

2007-01-26T23:09:00.000-08:00

Correction to Dishwasher Analysis

2007-01-24T14:03:00.000-08:00

So I made a mistake on the analysis yesterday in discussion. When I said that placing the dish in the dishwasher was an example of gap closing I was wrong. This is a classic mistake for two reason:

1) There was no example of the solution. He didn't have a picture of what the dishwasher looked like with the dish in it that he was comparing the process too, or some other representation of the solution that guided his behavior. So he wasn't closing a gap between the problem and the solution. He did use the environment to solve the problem and I'm sure that there is a lot of other terminology we could apply, but gap closing is not correct to use in this context.

2) The second mistake I made was forcing the data to fit the terminology. Don't fall into this trap, just because we have a lot of terminology to apply doesn't mean it will all work. I'm sure some of it will apply, but don't try to force it into the mold of the language that we develop in discussion. If you spend time on your paper trying to force the data to fit a term that you want to use you will miss out on opportunities to describe the phenomenon in terms that do apply.

I am thinking about adding an office hour on Thursday if there is enough interest, so if you would like some more help on your paper let me know and we can try to work one out.

Cramming dishes into dishwasher

2007-01-23T22:14:00.000-08:00

All slots are organized for item

Object larger then structure accommodated

Social interactions with roommates

Sense of completion

Goodwin Terminology

2007-01-23T22:12:00.000-08:00

Coding-The process by which phenomenon in the setting are transformed into objects of knowledge

Coding Schemes- The practice of transforming the world into categories and events that are relevant to that profession

Highlight- Making specific phenomenon of interest salient

Producing and Articulating Material Representations-Making phenomenon more easily operated on by producing artifacts that support their usage.

Domain of Scrutiny-An area if interest in the context of the work practices

Discursive practices- The processes by which cultural meanings are produced and understood

Coding Schemes- the method by which phenomenon is transformed into a useful set of inscriptions for a given profession.

Lave article Terminology

2007-01-23T22:07:00.000-08:00

Dialectic of Arithmetic of Grocery Shopping
Lave

Arena-Providing a higher-order institutional framework within which setting is constituted

Setting-The arena as experienced by an individual, taking into account their history and physicality

Dialectic-The iterative process of activity between the setting and the arena

Gap Closing-The process of moving the problem state and the solution closer until an answer is achieved

Environment as Calculating device-think about picking out papayas

Problem Becomes Procedure- Think about cottage cheese

now get dinner

Project 1 Review

2007-01-23T22:04:00.000-08:00

Separate data from analysis

Explain how the behavior is part of cognition

Pay particular attention to HOW the artifact are used
WHAT the structure of the object is that enables, supports or conflicts with the behavior
Back up your claims with your observations

Don’t use “Subject”
Try using "participant", "Interviewee", or just make up a name we don't care

Separation of Data and Analysis

2007-01-23T16:43:00.000-08:00

I thought I would contribute to the sadly underutilized blog that Jared so graciously created for us.

This is a continuation/elaboration to the question I asked today in discussion regarding the separation of data from analysis for Project 2. A big point was made in lecture not to assign meaning or purpose to the data from the informant, just because it's what we think is going on or what we want to be going on and fits nicely with our theories. This I understand. It gets complicated, when I myself become the informant as well as the cognitive enthnographer. How can I analyze my own actions without bias? How can I keep that data, what I am doing and what I know I am doing and that I know exactly what I am doing, and the analysis, how a cognitive ethnographer interprets (now me) what I am doing, separate? There is going to be no boundary.

Or maybe there doesn't have to be one. Perhaps I can use my detailed description of my actions as the pure data, as if I was an outsider describing a video of myself. Then, in a separate paragraph and part of the essay, I can analyze my actions from a cognitive ethnographer's POV, AS IF I, the cognitive ethnographer, conducted an intense, detailed inteverview with myself, the person partaking in the activity. In this sense, I can use all my knowledge about what I was doing and analyze myself using ideas and terms from this course. But then I can't truly separate data and analysis. I can't, as a cognitive ethnographer, assign meaning to something that I am doing if I, as the informant, know that is the wrong meaning. Or can I?

Maybe just separating data and analysis into two different paragraphs in my essay is good enough. Does the format I'm suggesting make sense and will it work for this project?

Notes from Discussion 1/9

2007-01-09T16:16:00.000-08:00

For todays discussion I thought we generated an excellent list of factors that could be considered when you ask questions for project 1. I think this will help you to more effectively examine how humans make sense of time.

Here is the list of the main cognitive activities associated with the use of the clock that we generated:

Reason about function
Representation of the numbers
Knowledge for the individual units for calculations
Estimating distance
Mapping the distance to a physical world
Mapping physical world to a distance
Perception in relation to amount of light

Here are the question that we generated for project 1:

Questions:
How differences in day and night are represented
How do we establish the meaning of the numbers to real world events
What is the starting point
How do you read the clock
What are the measurements of time
Where do you position the clock
Why are the numbers situated in certain places
What are the practices of looking at the clock
How differences in day and night are represented
How do we establish the meaning of the numbers to real world events
What is the starting point
How do you read the clock
What are the measurements of time
Where do you position the clock

I really appreciate all the input from everyone today. It seems like we have a really good group for our discussion and I expect that we're going to have a great quarter.

please feel free to add comment here or ask questions

Welcome

2007-01-09T15:52:00.000-08:00

Welcome to our class blog. I hope this forum allows us to communicate, clarify, collaborate and ultimately have a successful quarter. I will try to update the blog each week the notes from our discussion and some advice or clarification about upcoming assignments. I hope that this will allow people who don't like speaking in groups to be able to ask questions or voice opinions and concerns as well.