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  • © 2017

Cognition Beyond the Brain

Computation, Interactivity and Human Artifice

  • Explores the situated and systemic nature of thinking, creativity and decision making
  • Presents interactivity as a key driver of cognition
  • Extends the computational basis of distributed cognition into molecular systems
  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

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Table of contents (15 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-viii
  2. Thinking, Values and Meaning in Changing Cognitive Ecologies

    • Stephen J. Cowley, Frédéric Vallée-Tourangeau
    Pages 1-17
  3. Thinking with External Representations

    • David Kirsh
    Pages 61-84
  4. Time During Time: Multi-scalar Temporal Cognition

    • Jens Koed Madsen
    Pages 155-174
  5. Human Agency and the Resources of Reason

    • Martin Neumann, Stephen J. Cowley
    Pages 175-192
  6. Living as Languaging: Distributed Knowledge in Living Beings

    • Anton Markoš, Jana Švorcová, Josef Lhotský
    Pages 193-214
  7. Computer-Mediated Trust in Self-interested Expert Recommendations

    • Jonathan Ben-Naim, Jean-François Bonnefon, Andreas Herzig, Sylvie Leblois, Emiliano Lorini
    Pages 233-250
  8. The Cognitive Ecology of the Internet

    • Paul Smart, Richard Heersmink, Robert W. Clowes
    Pages 251-282
  9. Models, Mathematics and Materials in Digital Architecture

    • Kåre Stokholm Poulsgaard, Lambros Malafouris
    Pages 283-304
  10. Organisational Cognition: A Critical Look at the Theories in Use

    • Davide Secchi, Billy Adamsen
    Pages 305-331
  11. Back Matter

    Pages 333-342

About this book

This book challenges neurocentrism by advocating a systemic view of cognition based on investigating how action shapes the experience of thinking, placing interactivity at its heart. This systemic viewpoint makes three main claims. First, that many elaborate cognitive skills like language, problem solving and human-computer interaction (HCI) are based in sense-saturated coordination or interactivity. Second, interactivity produces a tightly woven scaffold of resources, some internal to the agent and others external, that elevates and transforms thinking. Third, human agents entwine brains, bodies and their surroundings as they manage multi-scalar dynamics.
This new edition continues to demonstrate how a systemic perspective casts a productive light on thinking in applied domains such as crime scene analysis, the use of information technology in construction, and computer-meditated trusts and presents new studies on the cognitive ecology of the web, multi-scalar temporal and organisational cognition and the importance of interactive material engagement in digital architecture. Authors use various scales of the systemic viewpoint to illustrate how bodies and artefacts shape thinking, but in all cases the experience of materiality is meshed with activity that involves the world beyond the body.


Cognition Beyond the Brain
is a valuable reference for researchers, practitioners and graduate students within the fields of Computer Science, Psychology, Linguistics and Cognitive Sciences.

Editors and Affiliations

  • Department of Language and Communication, University of Southern Denmark, Slagelse, Denmark

    Stephen J. Cowley

  • Department of Psychology, Kingston University, Kingston upon Thames, United Kingdom

    Frédéric Vallée-Tourangeau

About the editors

Stephen J.Cowley is Professor of Organisational Cognition at the University of Southern Denmark. He has developed ways of integrating the study of language, cognition and the sociocultural world and in 2012 he took up his current position in Denmark where he is concerned with how organisations rely on cognitive resources beyond the body. He founded the Distributed Language Group, a community who aims to naturalise language by focusing on how directed, dialogical activity imbues human intelligence with a collective dimension that also makes literacy possible.

Frédéric Vallée-Tourangeau is Professor of Psychology and Director of Postgraduate Research at Kingston University, UK. He holds a BA from McGill University, an MA from the University of Pennsylvania, and a PhD from McGill University. His most recent research explores the role of interactivity in the genesis of insight.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Cognition Beyond the Brain

  • Book Subtitle: Computation, Interactivity and Human Artifice

  • Editors: Stephen J. Cowley, Frédéric Vallée-Tourangeau

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49115-8

  • Publisher: Springer Cham

  • eBook Packages: Computer Science, Computer Science (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Springer International Publishing AG 2017

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-49114-1Published: 05 April 2017

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-84086-4Published: 20 July 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-49115-8Published: 28 March 2017

  • Edition Number: 2

  • Number of Pages: VIII, 342

  • Number of Illustrations: 16 b/w illustrations, 28 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: User Interfaces and Human Computer Interaction, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Linguistics

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 109.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 139.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 139.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access