Overview

Situated cognition
Wolff-Michael Roth1∗ and Alfredo Jornet2

Following the cognitive revolution, when knowing and learning have come to
be theorized in terms of representations stored and processed in the mind,
empirical and theoretical developments in very different scholarly disciplines
have led to the emergence of the situated cognition hypothesis, which consists
of a set of interlocking theses: cognition is embodied, fundamentally social,
distributed, enacted, and often works without representations. We trace the
historical origins of this hypothesis and discuss the evidential support this
hypothesis receives from empirical and modeling studies. We distinguish the
question of where cognition is located from the question of what cognition is,
because the confounding of the two questions leads to misunderstandings in
the sometimes-ardent debates concerning the situated cognition hypothesis. We
conclude with recommendations for interdisciplinary approaches to the nature of
cognition. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

How to cite this article:

WIREs Cogn Sci 2013. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1242

INTRODUCTION and machine intelligence. Citations (Google) to the

article have increased nearly linearly to the present
A t the end of the 1980s, just about at the
time when the cognitive revolution—based on
information processing and the mind as computer
day (Figure 1). The citation numbers in the Thomson
Reuter Web of Science database to the term ‘situated
cognition’ have increased exponentially over the
metaphor—had become the dominant approach to
last half-decade (Figure 1), in part because of an
cognition and learning, a new way of theorizing
human performance emerged: situated cognition. increasing interest in the experimental (‘hard’) sciences
There are claims that the situated cognition view where the uptake initially had been much slower
has grown rapidly over the past decade, including than in education and educational psychology, for
in the areas of cognitive and social neuroscience and example. Thus, not even a decade ago, the field of
(cognitive, social, and developmental) psychology.1 social psychology had ‘not yet fully appreciated the
Such claims are substantiated by citation counts. implications of the shift from computation to . . . an
Thus, for example, ‘Situated Cognition and the alternative . . . that cognition is for action and that
Culture of Learning’2 —one of the first articles on embodiment and the situated nature of adaptive action
the topic of ‘situated cognition’ that has achieved are crucial constraints’ (Ref 4, p. 104). The influence of
cult status with over 11,000 Google citations (2250 the situated cognition perspective on cognitive science
Thomson Reuters)—argued knowledge to be situated can be seen, among others, in the shift from intelligent
in the activities, contexts, and cultures where it tutoring systems research to systems that emphasize
is produced; Suchman’s seminal Plans and Situated interactivity.5
Actions3 (over 9000 Google citations) constituted a In the following, we begin by circumscribing
substantial critique of dominant assumptions about situated cognition as a set of interlocked theses and
the relationship of human actions, communication, proceed to describe the historical context in which
these theses emerged. We then articulate the evidence
∗
Correspondence to: [email protected] mobilized in support of these theses from (1) empirical
1
University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada studies and (2) modeling studies.a In the scholarly
2
InterMedia, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway debate concerning such studies mobilized in support
Conflict of interest: The authors have declared no conflicts of of the situated cognition hypothesis, two issues tend
interest for this article.
to remain unattended or are confused: the where and

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 Overview wires.wiley.com/cogsci

700
includes the following, generally interconnected but
Brown et al., 1989, Google
sometimes independently treated theses:
′Situated cognition′, ISI
600
1. Cognition arises from, and is connected to,
500 the interactions that the material body of an
agent entertains with its physical environment;
Citations/year

400 cognition is embodied and situated.

300
2. Cognition arises from, and is connected to, the
interactions that an agent entertains with its
200 social environment: cognition is situated in its
social context. This context may be immediate,
100 when typical behavior arises in relation to
other agents, or mediate, such as when typical
0 behavior arises within larger social contexts
1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
(communities, social networks, society).
Year
3. Cognition arises in, and for the purpose
FIGURE 1 | The number of citations to the topic-initiating article by of, action: cognition is enacted. Relations of
Brown et al.2 (in Google) and to the key term ‘situated cognition’. reference to the surrounding world and purposes
Source: Thomson Reuters Web of Science.
(intentions) characterize human behavior and
tool-use: in-order-to, what-for, what-in, and for-
what of cognition. In the Section ‘Situating Situated the-sake-of-which.
Cognition’, we discuss the situated cognition literature
in terms of the units of analysis that existing studies 4. Cognition is distributed across material and
employ. We conclude with a call for interdisciplinary social settings because of features (1)–(3).
approaches that combine rigorous studies of human Language-use and material practices are relevant
experience and cognitive science. categories that capture such features.
5. A lot of intelligent behavior does not require
explicit internal (mental) representation. What
SITUATED COGNITION—A SET OF is important instead is how the world presents
INTERLOCKED HYPOTHESES itself to the agent.
The central aspect of the situated cognition hypothesis
The situated cognition hypothesis fundamen-
is that intelligent behavior arises from the dynamic
tally challenges traditional notions of the boundaries
coupling between intelligent subject and its environ-
and, therefore, the locus of cognition. Understanding
ment rather than only from the agent’s mind (brain,
the implications of a situated approach involves
control system) itself.6 It has been suggested that sit-
a reorganization of our ways of understanding
uated actions rather than mental plans and processes
cognition as such, and not just the addition of the
constitute the appropriate unit of analysis.3 This view
‘situated’ modifier to commonly held conceptions of
sharply contrasts with the traditional view that cogni-
mind and thinking.
tion consists of the mind’s processing of information
that is available in the environment and registered by
a control system.7,8 From a situated cognition per- THE HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF THE
spective, information exists not prior to, but emerges SITUATED COGNITION HYPOTHESIS
from, and is a function of, the organism–environment
relation (coupling). It has been argued that the shift The situated cognition hypothesis arose within a par-
within cognitive science to the situated cognition ticular cultural–historical scholarly context where its
hypothesis is at least as profound as was the cognitive constitutive theses already existed within and across
revolution that led to the overturning of the then- academic disciplines, including phenomenological phi-
dominant behaviorist paradigm.9 However, there are losophy, cultural–historical activity theory, ecological
psychology, American pragmatism, computer science,
different interpretations within the field concerning
cybernetics, and theoretical biology.10
the nature of ‘situated cognition’; the differences are
sometimes large, depending on the relative status
given to the organism’s body and environment in Phenomenological Philosophy
the constitution of cognition. In this article, we treat Important historical precedents include the philosoph-
situated cognition as a scientific hypothesis that ical (phenomenological) analysis of everyday activity

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 WIREs Cognitive Science Situated cognition

and the nature of what is salient in the consciousness

of the agent (subject). Often-cited analyses are those in the course of habit formation and social
concerning the use of physical tools (e.g., hammering) feedback processes.18 An incarnate approach,
and language.11,12 Thus, in the case of a competent which gives primacy to movements from which
carpenter, it is not the hammer that appears in the habits and schemata may emerge, has been used
consciousness of the agent but the hammering a nail successfully to explain the emergence of formal
in the wall in-order-to hang a picture. Hammering is mathematical thought from pre-mathematical
understood to be part of a situated, embodied prac- experiences in the course of a lesson sequence
tice (set of patterned actions). This does not prevent on three-dimensional geometry for 6-year-old
the agent to make the hammer itself present in/to children.19
consciousness; the latter occurs, e.g., when there is
something wrong, e.g., when a hammer is too light Situation Calculus
or heavy or when it is broken (i.e., in case of a Situation calculus is a logical approach for rep-
resenting changes required in the modeling of
‘breakdown’). Subsequent phenomenological analy-
robots or language. For example, in the formal
ses showed how the understanding of space itself
approach to situated language use, the fun-
arises from the agent’s active explorations in its vicin-
damental assumption is that semantics—what
ity, so that the ‘places in space do not stand out something means—is situation dependent,
as objective positions’ but ‘inscribe around us the leading to a relational theory of meaning. Some
varying range of our aims or of our gestures’ (Ref scholars work on formalizing situation semantics
13, p. 168). Early phenomenological analyses of the mathematically, specifying information in terms
everyday lifeworld14 led to accounts of how funda- of temporal and spatial location, type of
mental social phenomena are produced in and through individual, relations, type of situations, type
concerted, mundane actions15 and to a critical exam- of types, parameters, and polarities.20 With
ination of the unavoidable gap between (abstract, these components, a calculus can be formulated
mental) plans and situated practical action, which is, (i.e., the operations that can be conducted) to
in any case, singular and always adapted to the con- arrive at more complex information types with
tingencies of context.3 More recent phenomenological situated meanings to the point of providing
studies focus on the primacy of movement and the models for communication breakdown in the
incarnate nature of cognition (see Box 1). Phenomeno- workplace.21 Situation calculus works on elabo-
logical studies informed the study of cognition in areas rating formal theories of knowledge and action,
such as Heideggerian AI, neurophenomenology, and embodied in a logical language that specifies
interdisciplinary fields combining phenomenological situations, actions that transform them, and
philosophy and the cognitive sciences. situation-dependent, changing functions called
fluents (e.g., hand-empty [relational fluent]
or battery-low [functional fluent]).22 In this
BOX 1 way, indexical knowledge may be formalized
to show how actions can be specified so as to
PRIMACY OF MOVEMENT: INCARNATE avoid making excessive requirements upon the
COGNITION internal knowledge of agents.23

Embodiment and enactivist accounts of situated

cognition often mobilize mental schemata to
explain bodily movements that are said to Cultural–Historical Activity Theory
underlie those experiences that subsequently Another important historical precedent exists in
are extended into the realm of formal thought (cultural–historical) activity theory, originally devel-
by means of metaphorization.16 However, on oped by Soviet social psychologists explicitly ground-
evolutionary and philosophical grounds, schema ing their ideas about cognition in the works of Spinoza
cannot be the origin of higher thought
and Marx, who had championed theories in which
processes, for the schemata themselves have
thinking, acting (praxis), and environment are part of
to be explained.17 Sheets-Johnstone provides
the same analytic unit (category).24,25 These psychol-
an extended critique of the points on which
the embodiment and enactivist accounts fall ogists developed the idea that the higher, specifically
short. Some philosophers postulate that there human psychological functions have their origin and
is a primacy of initially unmotivated, incarnate locus in human society generally and in the societal
movements that become intentional movements relations that agents participate specifically. Thus,
even if persons write or think for themselves, the

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ontogenetic origins of these activities are those societal human cultural activities such as schooling and philo-
relations that the persons have lived through before in sophical discourses on logic.31,32 Thus, the relations
characteristic material settings. When such relations between subjects and their activities are constitutive,
are absent, as in deaf–blind children, even the most not causal: ‘The processes of living are enacted by the
fundamental human behaviors and inclinations are environment as truly as by the organism; for they are
absent.26 Researchers using this approach—working an integration’ (Ref 31, p. 25). The influence of Amer-
among others in neuropsychology—recognized that ican pragmatism on situated cognition is particularly
mental processes, such as speaking, thinking, reading, noticeable in the fields of education, to which Dewey
or writing need to be understood in terms of complex contributed a lot, and of the learning sciences.
ecologies (functional systems), that involve both (1)
fundamental neuromuscular and physiological pro-
cesses and (2) their cultural–historical origin and Theoretical Biology
nature.27 This line of work influenced those studies There is a long history of studies in (theoretical)
that are marked by adjectives such as ‘sociocultural’, biology and physiology that emphasize the irreducible
‘cultural–historical’, and ‘societal–historical’. nature of an organism-in-environment system.33,34
Some fundamental ideas from biology and physiology
are associated with enactivism and embodiment
Ecological Psychology theories, which emphasize the structural coupling
Insights and experimental findings from ecological between organism and environment.35 This structural
psychology28 also contributed to the institution of coupling—which expresses itself in the fact that
what is now collected under the ‘situated cognition’ ‘there is no possible distinction between internally
label. A key concept from ecological psychology is and externally generated states of nervous activity’
that of ‘affordance’, which denotes the possibilities (Ref 35, p. 23)—determines useful behavioral results.
for visually guided locomotion, rhythmic movement, Such generally ecological theories of cognition
and (grasping, wielding) action that arise for the emphasize that agents (organisms) cannot live without
agent from those aspects of the environment salient environment and that the environment has definite
in/to its perception. Here, organism–environment characteristics only with respect to the particular
couplings are the major determinants of behavior: organism.36,37 Especially philosophical approaches to
A ball-shaped doorknob, e.g., affords turning to the cognitive sciences draw inspiration from biological
an agent, who ‘directly’ perceives it as a physically and physiological studies.
possible way to open a door.29 Such affordance is
not inherent to the doorknob, but refers to a relation
between a material possibility and the perception of SUPPORT FROM EMPIRICAL STUDIES
it in the course of action. The agent does not need
to have a mental representation of a door; rather, The term ‘situated cognition’ emerged from discus-
the environment itself suggests what needs to be sions that occurred during the mid-1980s at the
done. Ecological psychology had a particularly strong Institute for Research and Learning and the XEROX
impact on the cognitive sciences concerned with the Palo Alto Research Center, which were influenced,
design of workplaces and human artifacts. among others, by ethnographic studies of mathemati-
cal performance in the everyday (work) world as well
as by studies in situation semantics (see insert) and
American Pragmatism Heideggerian artificial intelligence (AI; see below).
American pragmatism has been another major influ- Central issues concerned the question whether (men-
ence on the situated cognition hypothesis. As early as tal) representation is a requirement for explaining
1896, Dewey objected to the view of the ‘reflex arc’ as higher-order psychological function and the mediating
a mechanistic stimulus–response relation and argued role of culture in (individual, collective) cognition.
for an organic approach in which sensation, thought,
and action would form an irreducible unit. In his view,
‘sensory stimulus, central connections and motor Cognition and Representation
responses shall be viewed, not as separate and com- A central aspect of the situated cognition hypothesis
plete entities in themselves, but as divisions of labor, is that many of the complex human behaviors do not
functioning factors, within the single concrete whole’ necessitate the internal representation of the world
(Ref 30, p. 358). Later, Dewey would articulate the and its contents; instead, structures in the environment
notions of continuity of experience and transaction as account for structures in behavior. Knowing does not
fundamental, irreducible categories for understanding mean mentally representing facts and rules about the

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 WIREs Cognitive Science Situated cognition

world but refers to how an organism functions in the Learning and Solving Problems Without
world. Research on perception, memory, and learning Representations: The Question of Transfer
is shedding light on the ways in which behavior The emergence of the situated cognition hypothesis,
can be based in organism–environment couplings especially as it pertains to educational research,
rather than on mental (internal) descriptions of the can be traced to a number of ethnographic studies
external world. that moved research on learning and cognition
outside the laboratory and into everyday practice
Perceiving and Remembering Without settings.3,43 Lave’s Cognition in Practice44 —one of
Representing: The World as Memory the early, frequently cited examples of the situated
One of the strongest arguments for a nonrepresen- approach (over 6500 Google citations)—reports
tational basis of perception comes from research on studies of arithmetic practices across settings,
‘change blindness’.38 Change blindness refers to the including grocery shopping, simulation experiments of
empirical evidence that changes in an image often grocery shopping, and school-like tests. These studies
go unnoticed when the change occurs while the eye demonstrated important discontinuities in peoples’
blinks or when there is a changeover to another, ways of approaching ‘structurally identical’ tasks
almost identical image. Because an internal represen- as a function of the setting, suggesting an inherent
tation of the visual field would presuppose a complete situativity in problem solving, as different solution
replica of the real thing, blinking should not pre- strategies were enacted depending on the problem
vent us from noticing or reconstructing those changes. presentation. Lave proposed to locate cognition
A comparison of the representations of the images in practices, patterned actions that are specific to
prior to and following an eye blink would make certain cultural–historical settings and communities.
it possible to detect the change. Change blindness Following these early studies, a number of related
therefore provides empirical support for the situated works instituted a ‘practice turn’ in educational
cognition hypothesis according to which the world research, where groups of learners are considered to
stands for itself rather than being represented in the constitute communities of practice45 , and learning as
mind.39 Sustained and rich visual experience depend a process of legitimate peripheral participation and of
on the direct relation between the environment and cognitive apprenticeship.2
the body, which knows where to find the information One of the most controversial issues that
required for some next step. Seeing does not con- arose together with the practice turn was the
sist in exhaustively scanning the world and internally challenge that it posed to the notion of learning
representing it—e.g., as in the CaMeRa model of cog- transfer. The idea of transfer was fundamental to
nition related to graphs.40 Rather, it constitutes an educational research, because it assumed that the
active, situated, and experience-specific exploration curriculum contents (e.g., in science, mathematics,
of the surrounding world, where the organism can or geography) could be appropriated in the school
access any required information at every stage in an and later applied in other, within- and out-of-school
inquiry. situations.46,47 This assumption is not supported by
Research has also explored the idea that research evidence, which reports no or insignificant
remembering—a function that classical literature in correlations between number of, and achievement in,
cognitive science explicitly relates to the retrieval school-based mathematics courses and mathematical
of stored representations—may be explained without behavior in the everyday world.44 A debate emerged
resorting to the notion of ‘retrieving’. From a situated in which scholars from an information-processing
view, memory traces can be seen as ‘incomplete, approach interpreted the claims on situativity as a
partial, and context-sensitive, to be reconstructed negation of the possibility of transfer.48 Proponents of
rather than reproduced’ (Ref 41, p. 229). These the situated cognition hypothesis, on the other hand,
memory traces are complemented with situational deemed such accusation misled49 because it ignored
(social and environmental) aspects that again can be the fundamental difference in the premises on learning:
seen as integral rather than external to the cognitive in the context of the situated cognition hypothesis,
process of remembering. Nelson and Fivush42 , e.g., learning is not viewed as the acquisition of knowledge
review research that shows how the ways in which contents, but in terms of expanding the learner’s
parents structure conversations about past events with action possibilities in larger systems of activity. An
their children strongly influence how children come alternative to the classic transfer paradigm is based on
to construct their own narrative history, suggesting Gibson’s notion of ‘affordance’,28 and may be defined
that memory is culturally mediated and remembering as a question of whether individuals are attuned to
contingent to situations. constraints of a situation’s affordances.50 It is not an

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 Overview wires.wiley.com/cogsci

internal model that transfers to another setting but around the world more generally.12,57 Shared bodily
a set of subject–environment relations. In line with experiences and the function of language to influence
this approach, some recent research conceptualizes the behavior of others makes language inherently a
learning transfer without explicitly resorting to cultural tool available to all members: it embodies
the notion of mental representation, but rather to a system of ideas (i.e., an ideology)58 or a system
situational aspects. Transfer has been explained as a of categorization of experiences in the world.56
result of ‘focusing frameworks’, where the situational However, this system is not deterministic, but evolves
objects that are noticed and made salient across together with and because of situated actions. The
situations are (1) a function of teacher–student signification of a word never is the same. Because
interactions51 and (2) highly influenced by the ways each experience transforms the objective conditions in
in which educational situations are ‘framed’.52 which further experiences are had,31,32 each utterance
becomes the seed for changing culture.59 Moreover,
because language embodies implicit rules for its own
Cognition as a Feature of Society use, competent speakers can situationally generate
Many social psychologists generally and activity statements on a topic even though they have never
theorists particularly accept K. Marx’s thesis that thought about this topic before and, consequently,
specifically human forms of cognition are not inher- without having a representation thereof.60 Again,
ited, but exist in society-specific cultural practices. from the situated cognition hypothesis these rules are
Thus, the founder of activity theory suggested that ‘the not considered formal symbolic relations stored in the
psychological nature of man is the totality of societal mind that then generate new language combinations.
relations shifted to the inside’ so that ‘development Language is learned by participating in societal
proceeds not toward socialization but toward indi- relations: it is a means for entertaining, and the result
vidualization of societal functions’ (Ref 24, p. 1023, of, societal relations. Language-use inescapably points
1025, original emphasis, underline added). Studies to the societal, shared nature of cognition.12,14,24
of tool use and practices among primates support
such suggestions.53,54 We exemplify this feature of Embodiment of the Social
the situated cognition hypothesis in the context of the Another way to investigate the forms in which
nature of language and the embodiment of the social. cognition is embodied and situated in the material
world is by looking at how people coordinate and
The Nature of Language organize their actions in society-specific activities. A
From the sociocultural and cultural–historical number of researchers from backgrounds as diverse
perspectives that underlie the situated cognition as linguistics, psycholinguistics, cognitive anthropol-
hypothesis, language is not a system of correspon- ogy, psychology, or computer science inquire into
dences between symbols and elements in the world, ways in which people constitute social order and
but a means for humans to coordinate their situated intercomprehension by investigating the embodied
actions3 with others and for agents to stimulate co-articulation of different semiotic fields during
their own minds.24 It has been suggested that signs55 face-to-face interactions.61 From this embodied inter-
generally and language24 specifically originally action perspective, language is not seen as an isolated
function to influence the behavior of others before the system, but as forming part of larger, multimodal
individual can use it to influence its own behavior. social intercourse, involving both the body (gestures,
This is especially the case because language arises postures) and the material elements of the situation
from, and is grounded in, bodily experiences that (objects being indexed or referred to). Many studies
are structured by the body and its movements; once exhibit the embodied, enacted, and distributed aspects
these movements are encoded in symbolic form, they of cognition in studies of communication in a variety
can be used as metaphors to describe and refer to of workplaces and everyday settings.62 This work sug-
other types of entities.56 For example, the experience gests that an exclusive focus on the representational
of something being inside or outside of a container properties of communication—e.g., inscriptions in
may be used to think or talk about the mind: The the form of charts, maps, graphs—interferes with
container metaphor suggests that there are things an appropriate understanding of how these entities
inside the mind (e.g., internal representations) and are embedded within collectively organized human
other things outside the mind (e.g., inscriptions, practices. Thus, for example, professional vision in
material representations). A pragmatic perspective archeology arises from and interacts with talk, writ-
supports the contention that there is no difference ing, and tools as people communicate—using words,
between knowing a language and knowing one’s way gestures, body position, and body orientation—over

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 WIREs Cognitive Science Situated cognition

and about salient issues (e.g., producing a map).63 of the tasks involved would exceed the capacities of
Other studies show how prosody (speech intensity, human cognition based on representations of kitchen,
volume, and pitch), intellectual disagreement, lan- tools, materials, orders, and so on. Rather, following
guage, body orientation, body position with respect Heidegger’s analysis that tools are ‘ready-to-hand’,
to the playing field, and emotion interact in the course a function that is an integral part of a what-for
of children’s playing a game of hopscotch.64 That orientation, the kitchen as a whole is taken as its own
is, an argument that plays out at the group level representation. Thus, e.g., a sandwich in a particular
simultaneously is reflected in body movements that state and at a particular place in the kitchen requires
the participants are not conscious of. Intonation, a specific action to move it into its next production
rhythm, and facial expressions of different speakers stage. The state of the kitchen itself suggests what
tend to be aligned in agreement, but are significantly needs to be done next. The cook is the agent who
different in disagreement not only over the outcome of enacts these transformations. As a result, many orders
games, but also during debates concerning conceptual can be worked on simultaneously without requiring
issues.65 Consistent with the notion of cognition mental representation and computation. This is
as socially situated and embodied, recent studies also important in learning, for ‘what the learner
in experimental psychology show for example that acquires through experience is not represented at all
(1) automaticity—response to threat with aggressive but is presented to the learner as more and more
(fight) or distancing behavior (flight)—is a function finely discriminated situations’ (Ref 70, p. 250). This
of the situation (subject in enclosed booth or in development does not require representation of the
open field)66 , (2) eye movements, gazing times, and environment in the agent’s mind, but may occur in
memory for images are highly responsive to being terms of the changing relations and the adaptation of
informed that others are looking at the same images a mental pointer system (‘deictic codes’).72
at the same time67 , and (3) place cognition is a
function of active perception.68
Situated Robotics
SUPPORT FROM MODELING STUDIES Important existent proofs that intelligent and complex
Support for the situated cognition hypothesis also behavior is possible without mental representation
comes from modeling studies in AI, robotics, artificial derives from situated robotics and other artificial
neural networks, and associated mathematical models life modeling endeavors. Situated robotics can be
(see Box 1). An important point of discussion understood as a valuable foil for (1) articulating
centers on the question of representation and whether and explaining the different aspects of the situated
it is necessary for the acting subject to have a cognition hypothesis73 and (2) studying the sufficient
representation of the world in its mind or whether conditions of cognition. It thereby constitutes a
other forms of relating to the world not only are meta-methodological tool for those natural sciences
possible, but also accomplish tasks that traditional concerned with cognition in its varying guises.6 In
AI and cognitive psychology have ascribed to mental the early years, robots were controlled by software
representations.69 There appears to be a general sense that represented the environment in which the robots
that modeling studies may be able to set constraints moved. These robots therefore could operate only in
on theories of cognition, e.g., concerning the need for fixed, pre-defined environments. As an alternative, sit-
representations to explain higher-order behavior. uated robotics focused on building robots that learned
and developed by moving around and interacting with
complex and dynamically changing environments
Heideggerian AI without explicit, stored representations.74 On the
One approach to AI and the modeling of human basis of Wittgenstein’s idea of language as a game,12
behavior took as its starting point Heidegger’s descrip- some designers of situated robotics work on the
tion of everyday ways of being.70 This approach relies problem of (1) not only allowing communication
on careful, phenomenological analyses of human between and with situated robots in their environment
experience for the purpose of designing computing and grounding communication (language) in the
systems consistent with the experience—e.g., the material world (2) but also developing suitable
absence of a mental representation of a hammer while language games from the bottom up.75 Another
hammering a nail into a wall. Researchers working in approach to the emergence of language focuses on
this direction modeled, for example, the activities in a the embodiment of meanings of symbolic forms
short-order kitchen, where a cook works on multiple and takes the communicative forms to be embodied
orders simultaneously.71 Accomplishing the entirety and emergent from collective activity.55 Because the

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communication is itself an aspect of the material alleged situatedness of cognition is to be understood

environment, future developments may well erase the is still a controversial issue. The debates about
distinction between (communicative) symbols and this situated cognition often focus on the question of
environment. Making its starting point with results where cognition is located, failing to first answer
from experiments with live organisms, recent work in the question as to what is referred to when using
robotics often tests specific emergent hypotheses, for the term cognition. Territory (material processes) and
example, how place cognition might be a function of map (models, concepts, names) do not appear to be
the agent’s active exploration of the environment.68 distinguished. But names and the things they name
That is, rather than maps (representation), movement- are different, though their mutual implications make
based modifications in the agent-in-setting unit affect it impossible to consider them independently.79 If
next actions and behaviors emerge as a result of the latter question—i.e., What is cognition?—is not
evolution in organisms (i.e., evolved robots). answered and explicated, the debate about whether
or not the situated cognition hypothesis is intelligible,
plausible, and fruitful is likely to founder on the rocks
Artificial Neural Networks of mutual misunderstanding. In the following, we
Artificial neural networks (ANNs) also are used provide brief responses to these two questions.
in arguments that support the situated cognition
metaphor because they do not work with classical
forms of representation. ANNs have been used,
Where Is Cognition?
for example, to show the relative influences of The situated cognition hypothesis is integrally related
environment and network characteristics on language to theses that go under the banners of embodied,
learning.76 Thus, language learning may be thought enactivist, embedded, and distributed cognition.80
of in terms of a linguistic environment that changes Much discussion has concerned whether cognitive
from low to higher complexity (e.g., words and processes should be understood as extending beyond
short sentences of children’s babble before longer the skin—as to include aspects of the environment as
sentences of older children) or in terms of the constitutive of cognitive phenomena—or not. We can
organism being exposed to the full language, but distinguish two positions in the debate on situativity
with developmental constraints on what the organism from the latter perspective: the embedded cognition
can handle. Elman shows that ANNs learn efficiently hypothesis, and the extended cognition hypothesis.81
when exposed to the language in its full complexity, The extended cognition thesis argues that some
but by varying a parameter that corresponds to the cognitive processes may be seen as extending beyond
empirically observed short-term memory constraints. the skin of the individual agent to include external
In ANNs, linguistic and other structures are not aspects. A recurrent notion in this regard is ‘cognitive
off-loading’—the observation that part of any situated
encoded and stored. Rather, regular patterns can
cognitive operation involves an active relation with
be found—e.g., by means of factor analysis—in the
the environment. Consider, e.g., skilled baggers in
activation levels of the artificial neurons in the course
supermarkets who spatially group items to be bagged
of processing and forwarding the stimuli received at
in functional groups, according to weight, shape,
the sensorial periphery. Such modeling is consistent
or fragility.82 ‘Thinking’ about which item comes
with the enactivist dimension of the situated cognition
next in the bagging process, though still occurring
hypothesis. As shown in a study of balance beam
in the mind, is not accomplished in a disembodied,
problems, artificial neural networks can be used
disembedded manner, but actively involves operating
to model the reflexive nature of cognition.77 Thus,
on the physical environment. In this sense, the physical
a second-order network constructed to analyze the
actions performed are not just pragmatic in that
activation levels of a first-order network reveals the
they are convenient, but are ‘epistemic actions’ that
same type of structure that a factor analysis reveals.
truly modify a problem-solving act.83 Proponents
ANNs that can modify the number of neurons and the
of the extended cognition hypothesis argue that in
linkages have been used successfully to model stage-
examples such as the one of the baggers, ‘epistemic
wise cognitive growth that does not require mental
action . . . demands spread of epistemic credit’
representation.78
(Ref 84, p. 8). The embedded cognition hypothesis,
in turn, suggests that, while external aspects may
help to produce and explain cognitive phenomena,
SITUATING SITUATED COGNITION
these are not constitutive of cognition. Rather, there
In the previous sections we review research supporting is a causal relation between the external (extra-
the situated cognition hypothesis. However, how the cranial) aspects—the manipulations of the items to

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 WIREs Cognitive Science Situated cognition

be bagged in the example above—and cognition.85 of cognition can be drawn in regard to how integral the
Cognition is produced by the brain; and the fact notions of body and environment are to the minimal
that extra-cranial aspects play a central role in a given unit of analysis.
cognitive function does not concede them the cognitive
‘credit’.86 Empirical investigations cannot solve the
problem, as these cannot distinguish between the two Self-Actional Models
perspectives, that is, between different claims about In the classical approach to cognition, the (sensory)
where cognition lies.81 experience in one or more situations gives rise to repre-
Another way of framing the question of situated sentations, which are the results of abstractions from
cognition involves defining first the range of phenom- the concrete situations (Figure 2(a)). As abstractions,
ena that we consider cognitive. Some psychologists they can be used in (applied to) all other situations
have warned long ago to consider higher psycholog- that are consistent with the structure retained in the
ical functions as structures inherent in nature rather abstraction. Representations are symbols stored in
than as human constructs, and not to confuse brain memory in the form of declarative and procedural
and person: it is the person controlling the brain ‘knowledge’ that describe objects in and transfor-
by means of external stimuli.24 This is consistent mations of the environment. The more abstract the
with empirical observations, where, for example, representation, the larger the set of situations to
situational characteristics such as the number and which it can be applied. From this view, relations with
arrangement of milk cartons on a pallet and the the environment involve the enactment of production
number of milk cartons that constitute the customer’s rules—abstractions of functional relations with the
order together determine what the actions of the environment—that are activated by environmental
person organizing the delivery will do and calculate.43 stimuli. In ‘turning to the left’ while driving a car,
Some present-day neuroscientists agree noting that for example, cognition involves the enactment of
‘brains do not experience—organisms do’ (Ref 87, production rules of the type ‘IF the road curves to the
p. 319). To understand cognition, therefore, we need left THEN turn to the left’. The body is considered,
to consider the agent in its ecological context, which as the environment, to be the ‘raw sensory input’ for
together allow us to understand the role that the cognitive processing. Cognitive phenomena include
processes inside the brain play—especially if under- encoding, retrieval, or processing of information.
stood as an evolutionary feature that represents an Because the elemental units of this model (represen-
advantage.88 tations) are used to explain the behavior of what is
defined as the cognitive system, we label this model as
self-actional.79
What Is Cognition?
How cognition is understood and modeled depends Interactional Models
on the categories used, the smallest units of analysis In much of the situated cognition literature, the
into which human behavior can be decomposed while application of representations is de-emphasized or
preserving the characteristics of the relevant whole. In absent. Rather, researchers focus on how a situation
recent years, there has been a shift from units defined presents itself to the subject (Figure 2(b)). No
by properties inherent to the brain to units defined boundary is drawn between environment, body, and
by correlations and dynamic patterns that include the mind. Research adopting this model emphasizes the
brain, body, and environment leading to the study mutually constitutive (dialectical) nature of situation
of cognitive ecosystems.89 In choosing a particular and presentation (activation).43,44 The minimal unit is
unit of analysis, the researcher actively defines the a unit of interaction between two entities: subject and
boundaries of the phenomenon and, thereby, situates environment. Cognitive phenomena are not restricted
cognition and frames the domain that needs to be to what happens inside the brain, but refer to
theorized: The unit of analysis determines what is the interactions within the person-in-situation unit.
to be understood as cognition and what lies outside Interactional models adopt a nondualist approach
it. Different models bear different implications for to agency. In the cognitive system, mind, body,
how the notion of representation is understood. and environment are considered both agent and
Notions such as distributed cognition arise as the structure: acting and acted-upon. However, these
result of taking, for example, ship navigation—a task models face a challenge in that the connections
involving a team of people and the coordination across situations are rarely addressed or explained,
of several representational devices—as the unit of making it difficult to theorize stability and long-
cognitive analysis.90 Different approaches to the study term growth to the extent that a representational

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 Overview wires.wiley.com/cogsci

(a) (b) (c)

t
R1 R1R1′ P1 P2 P1 P2
P1′
t?

S1 S2 S1 S2 S1 S2

FIGURE 2 | Different units of analysis lead to different ways of conceptualizing the nature of cognition. (a) Classical representation approach. (b)
A nontransactional interpretation of the situated cognition approach. (c) Transactional, dialectical approach, where time is not external, but is
integrated with the units of analysis.

approach does. Time is often unaddressed or taken minimum units that preserve the characteristics of
as the context of the unit of analysis. Thus, for the whole have been proposed, including experience
example, models of situated construction of attitudes [pereživanie],32,87 activity,24,25 and consciousness.25
are good at explaining situated appropriateness In cultural–historical approaches, society constitutes
and differences across situations, but fail to the defining whole.24,25,95 A transactional unit of
address enduring characteristics.91 In fact, there is analysis allows accounting for the re-presentational
very little research that followed subjects across aspects of cognition without turning representations
time with changing conditions (situations). Lave’s into the cause of behavior. Thus, researchers working
study of mathematics in the supermarket, on within this frame can theorize cognitive processes
simulated shopping problems, and on best-buy both as parallel and as sequential.96 The parallel
word problems44 emphasizes discontinuities more so aspects highlight the conceptual nature of perception,
than continuities that arise from the same bodies where perceiving is both imposing certain structure
being involved in and moving between material on the world as well as letting the world guide percep-
settings. tion, involving affection at least as much as intention.
The sequential aspects highlight the spatiotemporal
Transactional Models extension of cognition, allowing representations to
A third type of model focuses on what is present in the reside both in the mind, the body, and the (material
consciousness of the subject, in subject–environment and social) environment; and it highlights a reflective
transactions, and, simultaneously, includes the trans- dimension that is not reduced to any single instant,
formed situation itself (Figure 2(c)). Time becomes but which implies internal temporal connections.
internal to the phenomenon rather than constituting Rather than an inherent representational function
an external factor. For example, a study investigating of the brain, re-presentational (imagistic, narrative)
students’ conceptual activities in a science learning functions emerge from the fact that time is inherent
activity showed how the problem itself was contin- to the unit of analysis. From this view it is possible
uously transformed, and, with it, the way in which and plausible to study the role of the body and the
the task presented itself.92 New problem and solution (material, social, and societal) environment in pre-
strategies emerge unpredictably, whereas previously senting and re-presenting the world during cognitive
stated problem definition and solution alternatives activity.
fell to the wayside. That is, the minimum analytic unit
contains the transformation (temporal dimension) and From Biology to Culture
the forces of development within itself. If a satisfac- A transactional unit of analysis involves a multiplicity
tory criterion for a good model states that the smallest of constitutive levels. Across the different academic
category is that unit which preserves properties of the fields where situated cognition approaches are used,
whole, then knowing and known have to be under- four levels of analysis may be identified (Table 1).
stood as constituting one, transactional system. As a The first level is concerned with the biology
consequence, there is an inner contradiction because (neural, physiological) and always inaccessible to
what in other models are different situations here are consciousness. The second level concerns the body and
part of the same minimum unit of analysis. Dynam- its fundamental operations that tend to be automatic
ical models in cognitive science, which focus on but can be brought into conscious awareness (e.g.,
continuous change (rather than states), the dynamical those movements of the body that are involved
coupling of environment and subject, and on alterna- in shifting gears but that tend to be unconscious
tive approaches to representation attempt to capture in the performances of competent drivers). At the
both continuity and discontinuity.93,94 Different third level are individual or collective agents that

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 WIREs Cognitive Science Situated cognition

TABLE 1 Levels of Analysis

Dimension
Level Agent Process Consciousness
1 Neural, physiological (biology) (Fundamental) biological processes Pre-conscious (pre-noetic)
2 Body Operations Automatic, conditioned, unconscious
3 Individual, collective agent (subject) Actions Conscious goals
4 Culture, network, society Activities, practices Collective motives

pursue conscious goals, which they realize through studies reviewed are close to insights that had arisen
actions. The fourth, most global level is defined from phenomenological studies of space perception.
by culture (society), characterized by collective Other scholars relate their work concerning the role
practices (activities) that realize collective motives of mirror neurons in joint action and affect to the
(e.g., generalized provision of food, shelter, and other phenomenological studies (Husserl, Merleau-Ponty)
needs). The imaging-related metaphors of zooming of self-other identity and affect.99 There are mathe-
and focusing may assist understanding how the choice matical (catastrophe-theoretic) modeling approaches
of the analytic unit determines what enters into the that provide the mediating link between physical
analytic lens.97 Zooming limits what comes into the (scientific) and cognitive (computational vision)
picture, making invisible anything that lies outside and explanations of visual perception and phenomeno-
the connections between inside and outside; focusing logical descriptions thereof.100 Some researchers
refers to finding the appropriate method to provide concerned with aspects of situated cognition explicitly
the best image of the entities in the chosen field. suggest that ‘disciplined first-person accounts [of
experience] should be an integral element of the
validation of a neurobiological proposal, and not
CONCLUSION merely coincidental or heuristic information’ (Ref
One of the most significant implications that results 101, p. 344). The possibilities and implications of
from expanding the unit of analysis in situated such an approach remain to be explored and tested
cognition is that phenomena, which previously where empirically.
seen as epiphenomenal to cognition and therefore To understand intelligent behavior means
remained unexplained by cognitive accounts, are now accounting for the role of human experience, however
thoroughly explored with the aim of providing a sub- subjective it might appear, by any suitable means.
stantial (fundamental) contribution to understanding There are efforts to combine the rigorous study of
intelligent behavior. Perceiving, remembering, or human experience and the cognitive sciences,102 an
reasoning are not independent phenomena—to be effort sometimes referred to as the naturalization of
explored as operations of the brain alone—but phenomenology or the phenomenological mind.103
are integral to agents-in-their-context-acting-for-a- The perhaps most ardent advocate for an integration
purpose-and-with-tools. Because the unit of analysis of research approaches across all levels, F. J. Varela,
that the situated cognition hypothesis in the interac- proposed neurophenomenology.101 This approach is
tional and transactional versions proposes cuts across designed to deal with the ‘hard problem’ of cognitive
levels (see Table 1), the study of cognitive phenomena science, the interrelation of human experience and
thus understood requires interdisciplinary methods associated brain activity; it may thereby also address
capable of accounting for the connections between the ‘grounding problem’ of cognitive science, that is,
the levels. the question of how abstract (mental), nonphysical
There are already studies in the neurosciences representations are connected to physical actions of
recognizing philosophical studies that have antici- real people. Varela argues that studies of neural cor-
pated their results. Thus, a team studying the neural relates of experience require not only the methods
processes involved in spatial perception noted that of the neurosciences, but also rigorous approaches
the findings they reviewed were inconsistent with to the study of experience and invariants thereof.
traditional cognitive science, which is based on Attention, present-time consciousness, body image,
mental representations, but emphasized the role perceptual filling in and fringe/center, and emotion
of motor-to-sensory pathways in object and space are but some of the domains where careful scientific
perception.98 The authors note that the single neuron and first-person, phenomenological studies can lead to

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 Overview wires.wiley.com/cogsci

concerted convergent accounts of an ‘embodied, situ- shows how symbolic behavior among bonobo (pygmy
ated, or enactive cognitive science’ (Ref 101, p. 346). chimpanzee) arises from movements designed to
Because of the embodiment that the situated engage in carrying behavior.55 Similarly, studies
cognition hypothesis postulates, a direct connection among teen-aged students in hands-on science show
between thought and affect—missing in other how hand-arm movements—initially modifying and
approaches to cognition—is established. Social aspects exploring the setting with the senses (i.e., ergotic,
of situatedness give rise to the shared nature of epistemic movements)—subsequently become iconic
affect (emotion), such as in experiences of empathy (symbolic) hand gestures the contents of which
or collective emotions (e.g., grief over the loss of a later are represented in symbolic (e.g., abstract
leader or ‘national’ elation over a win at some world physical model), linguistic, and pictorial forms.108
championship). Recent studies using a wide spectrum Both interdisciplinary field and laboratory studies are
of ethnographic methods, such as monitoring of required for testing the universality of such changes
pitch and speech intensity, have started to investigate in communicative behavior and the precise role that
the regulative functions of emotions in (mundane) language plays when communication is understood
situated cognitive activities such as during everyday more holistically: spread across bodies and situations.
work in a fish hatchery.104 Cognitive ethnographic In summary, the situated cognition hypothesis
studies are also being mobilized to account for the opens a horizon of research questions that bears great
connections between cultural practices and situated potential for expanding what cognitive science has to
collective conceptualizations.105 Further work needs say about competent and intelligent human behavior.
to be conducted in everyday settings similar to the To create new research, the cognitive sciences, which
early studies on the cognitive aspects of mathematics already span, as the editors of The Cambridge
in the everyday world. Handbook of Situated Cognition state, ‘a wide range
Solving the question of transfer from a situated of projects in philosophy, psychology, neuroscience,
perspective is still a challenge to accomplish. There anthropology, robotics, and other fields’ (Ref 109,
is a tension between the need to address change and p. 9) may find it useful to follow research in other
at the same time explain recurrence and stability. emerging fields—including biotechnology, nanoscale
Whereas the mentioned developments have been science and engineering, genomics, medicine, and
useful in advancing our understanding of how the other strategic disciplines—where theoretical and
subject–situation relations are involved in learning, methodological interdisciplinarity are correlated with
these have at some extent remained interactional in innovation.110 To encourage novel approaches in the
that explanations of learning have centered on intel- field, a special issue in Topics in Cognitive Science
lectual aspects, continuity across situations consisting on the theme of interdisciplinary approaches may
in structural relations of information structures. Other constitute an ideal starting point for launching this
approaches that have attempted to account for the topic anew. Of particular interest may be those
developmental aspects of change and continuity, for places where humans and machines (e.g., intelligent
example across the school and the world of work, have robots) come to relate and reconfigure each other—as
overlooked the mechanisms by which the intellectual intimated in the title of Suchman’s Human–Machine
aspects of conceptualization emerge and evolve.106,107 Reconfigurations.3
Furthermore, the role of the body in transfer consti-
tutes an important question that requires an answer
from the situated cognition hypothesis. NOTES
To solve questions concerning the role of a
Here we understand ‘support’ in terms of the
language, studies need to be conducted that document Bayesian approach, which (a) establishes probabilities
and explicate how communication with abstract p(H|D) for hypothesis H given the data D—in
symbols may arise from bodily behavior. It is contrast to the classical statistical approach that
only in this way that we can come to better establishes probabilities p(D|H) of data D given
understandings about how (linguistic, symbolic) hypothesis H—and (b) uses both quantitative and
behaviors have evolved from their evolutionary qualitative data (e.g., in determination of priors)
precedents and how (new) (linguistic, symbolic) in support for a hypothesis H or its alternate Halt :
communication arises in the course of development p(Halt |D) = 1 – p(H|D).
along the life span. Thus, for example, one study

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 WIREs Cognitive Science Situated cognition

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FURTHER READING
Agre P. Computation and Human Experience. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press; 1997.
Johnson M. The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Imagination, Reason, and Meaning. Chicago, IL: Chicago University
Press; 1987.
Robbins P, Aydede M, eds. The Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press;
2009.
Sheets-Johnstone M. The Primacy of Movement. 2nd ed. Amsterdam: John Benjamins; 2011.
Varela FJ, Thompson F, Rosch E. The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press; 1991.

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