Distributed cognition criteria: Defined, operationalized, and applied to human-dog systems

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Science
• Comparative Psychology
• Human-Animal Interaction

Background:

• Distributed cognition is typically viewed as intraspecific, limiting its application to diverse group-level cognitive phenomena.
• Existing frameworks struggle to account for cognition not easily explained through mentalistic or verbal terms.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish empirically-verifiable criteria for assessing distributed cognition.
• To extend the concept of socially distributed cognition to interspecies interactions.

Main Methods:

• Proposed a framework with criteria: interaction-dominant dynamics, agency, and shared task orientation.
• Applied this framework to human-dog working systems.
• Contrasted human-dog cognition with human-tool and human-draft animal interactions.

Main Results:

• The human-dog system meets the proposed criteria for socially distributed cognition.
• Identified three operationalizable factors for classifying distributed cognition phenomena.
• Demonstrated the framework's utility for interspecies cognition.

Conclusions:

• The proposed criteria offer a more stringent and empirically grounded approach to distributed cognition.
• The human-dog relationship serves as a key model for interspecies socially distributed cognition.
• This framework expands our understanding of group-level cognition beyond intraspecific interactions.