What is Distributed Cognition?

The human brain has limits. For example, our brain can only hold somewhere between 2 and 7 items in working memory, and is notorious for creating false information during retrieval.

Yet, humans regularly perform incredible cognitive feats that involve more than 7 items, and lots of accurate retrieval. How?

One theory in cognitive science that helps explain human abilities is Distributed Cognition.

Cognition is thinking. It could be decision making, problem solving, and creative idea generation.

Thus the theory of Distributed Cognition says we can think outside of our brains. Weird.

Solving a math problem is an example of cognition. We can solve 2+2 in our heads. But what about pi * pi / sqrt(2)?

We pull out a calculator, and let the calculator take part in the thinking. That’s cognition, but distributed outside of the brain.

Arithmetic is a very specific example, though. What about more general cognition?

You may have heard the term “second brain” used to describe someone’s organized collection of information. The goal is to improve accurate retrieval. That’s definitely distributed cognition. But is it really a “second brain”? I’d argue it’s more like a second long-term memory. It doesn’t help get around working memory limits.

An infinite canvas is more like a second brain’s short-term memory. Human ability to process visual information is incredible. We can draw diagrams, charts, graphs, and maps to get around our working memory limits and achieve things beyond our brain’s solo capabilities.