The nature of cognitive artefacts 135
Does he share the theoretical views that make this change relevant in explanatory
terms? How can we make sure that a variety of observers relate to the same picture
in the same way, so that its function as an external cognitive resource is secured?
First and foremost, the information required for a common understanding –
for a shared mode of filling in the missing information, as it were – may be presented in a variety of ways, with different degrees of articulation, standardisation
and public availability. It may consist in a picture’s placement within a series of
pictures, or in different individuals’ memories of the event depicted, or in an act
of pointing towards what is depicted (if it is present in a shared environment) or
in some commentary or description in natural language.
Arguably, the last of these ways of providing contextual information will be of
the highest degree of articulation, standardisation and public availability – which,
however, comes at a cost. In their “Extended Mind” paper, Clark and Chalmers
justify the privileged status they assign to language as an extension of the mind by
its function of achieving a cognitive coupling between individuals, so as to jointly
meet individual and collective purposes of the cognitive or practical kind – rather
than coupling one organism with aspects of his environment so as to meet a certain set of individual purposes. For linguistic items, their proper way of usage will
be fixed and occasionally modified in the very course of public usage and, to some
part, by explicit definitions. Moreover, the rules thus established can be explicated
and reconstructed by using the very same cognitive resource. On the grounds of
these properties, language may also be used to negotiate and fix the reference of
pictorial forms, and to give their users some guidance towards the proper way
of looking at them – although practical training of one’s visual system and some
degree of acquaintance with the object or kind of object or scene pictured will be
no less important for this purpose.
Considering maps or graphs, the role of language in properly understanding
them is quite obvious, as they are usually equipped with instructions on how to
read them (e.g. captions or legends that reveal what type of symbol stands for
what type of referent). Language is contained in them or attached to them. For
other pictorial forms, no such obvious and, as it were, institutionalised role of
language is available. One may give descriptions of some elements of the picture, telling the innocent observer what he or she ought to see there, or one may
describe the context in which the picture was taken, so as to remedy the asymmetries in contextual information, and perhaps establish rules of looking at a certain picture or type of picture.
It may be argued that such asymmetries in contextual information pertain to the
use of linguistic forms, too, but these asymmetries are easier to track in language,
as they can be explicitly addressed within the same medium, which, at the same
instance, is the medium with the highest degree of articulation that we have at
our disposal. It would be much more difficult to comment on a picture with a picture, so as to disambiguate its content, and to do so within a publicly accessible,
explicit framework of reference that would still remain pictorial. The cost of filling in the information missing in the picture is that the mode of presentation will
be changed, in moving away from visual perception. Such mediation, although it
Does he share the theoretical views that make this change relevant in explanatory
terms? How can we make sure that a variety of observers relate to the same picture
in the same way, so that its function as an external cognitive resource is secured?
First and foremost, the information required for a common understanding –
for a shared mode of filling in the missing information, as it were – may be presented in a variety of ways, with different degrees of articulation, standardisation
and public availability. It may consist in a picture’s placement within a series of
pictures, or in different individuals’ memories of the event depicted, or in an act
of pointing towards what is depicted (if it is present in a shared environment) or
in some commentary or description in natural language.
Arguably, the last of these ways of providing contextual information will be of
the highest degree of articulation, standardisation and public availability – which,
however, comes at a cost. In their “Extended Mind” paper, Clark and Chalmers
justify the privileged status they assign to language as an extension of the mind by
its function of achieving a cognitive coupling between individuals, so as to jointly
meet individual and collective purposes of the cognitive or practical kind – rather
than coupling one organism with aspects of his environment so as to meet a certain set of individual purposes. For linguistic items, their proper way of usage will
be fixed and occasionally modified in the very course of public usage and, to some
part, by explicit definitions. Moreover, the rules thus established can be explicated
and reconstructed by using the very same cognitive resource. On the grounds of
these properties, language may also be used to negotiate and fix the reference of
pictorial forms, and to give their users some guidance towards the proper way
of looking at them – although practical training of one’s visual system and some
degree of acquaintance with the object or kind of object or scene pictured will be
no less important for this purpose.
Considering maps or graphs, the role of language in properly understanding
them is quite obvious, as they are usually equipped with instructions on how to
read them (e.g. captions or legends that reveal what type of symbol stands for
what type of referent). Language is contained in them or attached to them. For
other pictorial forms, no such obvious and, as it were, institutionalised role of
language is available. One may give descriptions of some elements of the picture, telling the innocent observer what he or she ought to see there, or one may
describe the context in which the picture was taken, so as to remedy the asymmetries in contextual information, and perhaps establish rules of looking at a certain picture or type of picture.
It may be argued that such asymmetries in contextual information pertain to the
use of linguistic forms, too, but these asymmetries are easier to track in language,
as they can be explicitly addressed within the same medium, which, at the same
instance, is the medium with the highest degree of articulation that we have at
our disposal. It would be much more difficult to comment on a picture with a picture, so as to disambiguate its content, and to do so within a publicly accessible,
explicit framework of reference that would still remain pictorial. The cost of filling in the information missing in the picture is that the mode of presentation will
be changed, in moving away from visual perception. Such mediation, although it