Books
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A cognitive system performs the cognitive work of knowing, understanding, planning, deciding, problem solving, analyzing, synthesizing, assessing, and judging as they are fully integrated with perceiving and acting. A cognitive system is a distributed system in which people with diverse roles and capabilities, and with the assistance of technological functions, collaborate in the planning and performance of cognitive work.
Cognitive work is accomplished by people, either by themselves or in collaboration with others and with the support of technological functions. A cognitive system comprises one or more individuals (necessarily, at least one) and will typically (although not essentially) comprise diverse technological functions.
A cognitive system is a thinking (or intelligent) information system. However, the enhanced intelligence is not generated by the activity of intelligent technological functions as many in the discipline of Artificial Intelligence will want to claim, but emerges from the coordinated collaboration of distributed human agents via their interactions with each other and with functionally heterogeneous technological artifacts.
In the sense that collaborations between human agents and their use of technological artifacts are coordinated, effective, robust, and meaningful, the cognitive system is intelligent.
It is sometimes argued that computer-based agents can be employed to reason about the beliefs of human participants in teams. From the perspective I promote here, people reason but technological devices do not. Two people in coordination can possibly reason more effectively than either in isolation, and if they (as a coordinated dyad) avail themselves of the opportunities presented by technological devices that can clarify logical relationships, find and organize information, and probably offer a number of as yet unimagined supporting functions, these entities (the two people together with their technological devices) constitute a reasoning system.
The design of a cognitive system requires a special set of analysis and design tools. I describe the fundamentals on this site. I rely predominantly on the framework of Cognitive Work Analysis and the strategy of Functional (Ecological) Workspace Design but also employ the tools of Naturalistic Decision Making and Decision-Centered Design where appropriate.
The tutorials available on this site offer a guide.
Click the cover graphic to access the early pages.
What is a Cognitive System?
The Air Space as a Cognitive System
A Paradigm Shift in Safety Management
Modeling of Cognitive Workflow with the Brahms Simulation Environment
All resources on this site can be downloaded at no charge. Once you have registered and logged in, you have access to a selection of my published papers on cognitive systems and training systems as well as unpublished tutorials on analysis and design of cognitive systems and unpublished notes on various topics related to cognitive design. You will also find descriptions of some of the workshops I offer.