Reflect on week 5 Memory for Introductory Psychology course at Fulbright. My question is: What if information storage and processing is not only in the mind but the world?
Image created by Midjourney with the prompt: cognitive expansion
That is the opening question in the research paper "The Extended Mind" by Andy Clark and David Chalmers, published in 1998 [1]. In this paper, the researchers propose "The Extended Mind thesis" which challenges the conventional view that the mind and memory are limited to the brain and body. They argue that the mind can expand beyond the brain to incorporate external resources, such as tools and technology, to support cognitive processes. For instance, the use of tools like paper, pen, books, and notebooks allows humans to store more information and externalize cognitive tasks by writing and saving them.
Clark and Chalmers develop their argument by considering the case of Otto, who suffers from Alzheimer’s and has difficulty remembering things. Otto uses a notebook to help him remember things, and Clark and Chalmers argue that the notebook is an extension of Otto's mind. They claim that the notebook is not just a tool that Otto uses but is actually part of his cognitive system, and that the information stored in the notebook is part of Otto's mental states.
Later, Andy Clark formalized his principles in the book "Supersizing the Mind" (2008), where he proposed the theory of Cognitive Impartiality [2]. This hypothesis suggests that our mind is always concerned with cognitive cost, and therefore, it will choose any way that is cognitively less expensive. Ballard's study (1997) provides further evidence for this hypothesis [3].
In Ballard's study, participants were asked to replicate a pattern of blocks by moving them from a "resource" area to a "workspace" area. Afterward, they checked how participants observed and solved the task, using eye movement tracking techniques. They found that participants used minimal memory strategies to solve the problem by looking at the model to compare and find the appropriate puzzle piece in the workspace. The evidence shows that the MPMD strategy (looking from the Resource to the Model before looking at the Workspace) is used twice as much as the PD strategy (looking straight from the Resource to the Workspace and relying on memory to find the appropriate puzzle piece).
MPMD strategy (looking from the Resource to the Model before looking at the Workspace)
PD strategy (looking straight from the Resource to the Workspace and relying on memory to find the puzzle piece).
MPMD strategy is used twice as much as the PD strategy.
The study reveals the fact that even with small pieces of information, our brains tend to use minimal memory strategies to solve problems. This is interesting as it suggests that our brains have a tendency to rely on checking external sources repeatedly instead of storing information in memory. This, in turn, makes me ponder on the cognitive impact of the everyday tools we use. Do these technologies really help us increase our information processing ability or make us too reliant on external sources and lazy to think for ourselves?
Right now, when you read these lines, you can read my thoughts without seeing, hearing, or being near me. This is one of the simple examples of how technology helps us to overcome our physical and cognitive limitations.
Moreover, it is intriguing to think about what would happen if humans were born with the immersive technology of the near future, such as augmented reality or an AI assistant with human-like intelligence. We would constantly be immersed in technology and reliant on it to perform even the simplest tasks. We would become human cyborgs.
The question then arises, would we still be able to function as human beings without technology? These are just some of the many questions that this study raises, and it is clear that further research is needed to fully understand the impact of technology on our cognitive abilities and the way we function as human beings.
[1] Clark, A., & Chalmers, D. (1998). The Extended Mind. Analysis, 58(1), 7–19. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3328150
[2] Clark, Andy, Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension , Philosophy of Mind Series (New York, 2008; online edn, Oxford Academic, 1 Jan. 2009), https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195333213.001.0001
[3] Ballard, D. H. (1997). Deictic codes for the embodiment of cognition. http://wexler.free.fr/library/files/ballard (1997) deictic codes for the embodiment of cognition.pdf