Situated, Embodied Human Interaction and its Implications for Context Building in Knowledge Mobilisation Design

Abstract

System design is mostly guided by the computational model of the mind, known as computational cognitivism. This model, traditionally based on Turing's Universal Machine, looms large behind the bulk of system design even in Intelligence Augmentation (IA) approach to human‑computer interaction, although with the seemingly obvious exception of connectionist approaches (e.g. neural networks, swarm intelligence). Other extensive computational models do exist (e.g. Hintikka and Mutanen's trial‑and‑error computability model and Peirce's semiotic model) but they have not yet been implemented in working computer systems. Computational cognitivism pictures the mind as a disembodied, decontextualized calculating machine, operating with logical‑ syntactic rules and principles. This view has in contemporary times been challenged from the quarters of biology, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, psychology and economics. Perhaps the best comprehensive label for this critical approach is grounded cognition. Grounded cognition conceptualises the mind as a complex process related to and partially constituted by body, environment, other minds and artefacts, thus calling for a corresponding re‑evaluation of knowing, understanding, learning, perception, action, interaction and reasoning. The aim of this paper is to tentatively examine whether these insights into natural cognition could inform the system design of mobile systems which support nomadic knowledge workers as well as the man in the street. Computer supported (automated) context building is of special interest here as the human way(s) of being in the world presents a particular challenge to this part of system design.