Extended cognition and the future of ergonomics

Abstract

Ergonomics, as the science of work, carries with it an implicit definition of work. Due to the technological development, the nature of work has changed significantly even in the time since ergonomics became established as a science. One response was the change from classical to cognitive ergonomics in the beginning of the 1980s. Cognition, however, is itself the subject of change, most clearly in the transition from cognition in the mind to cognition in the world, with the associated notion of distributed cognition. It is argued that one may be facing yet another change, represented by the notion of extended cognition, which refers to the way in which people use technological and cognitive artefacts to improve their ability to control a situation. Since the information society both increases the number of artefacts one can use, and raises the demands to being in control, the notion of extended cognition can provide a way both to identify the impending problems and outline the solutions. Keywords: Cognitive Systems EngineeringExtended PhenotypeDistributed CognitionControlErgonomics