Educational Psychology—Limitations and Possibilities

CHAPTER 84
Situating Situated Cognition
WOLFF-MICHAEL ROTH
During the 1990s, it has become fashionable to talk about knowing and learning in terms of
distributed cognition, embodied cognition, and situated cognition. All of these terms imply that
knowing (etymologically, knowing and cognition have the same origins) exceeds what can be
found in the head. Like many others the reader may ask, “What do you mean, isn’t all we
know in our heads?” In this contribution, I articulate how and why we understand knowing as
situated (which implies embodied and distributed) and what implications this has for education
and psychology. Let me begin with the following two examples from my own experience.
Over the past fifteen years, I have become very familiar with my word processor. Many people
in my surrounding know this and ask me questions about how to do this or that with the software.
Sometimes I can provide them with an answer, but more often than not, I cannot articulate in
so many words how I do it. However, as soon as I am sitting in front of a computer, I can show
how to implement what the person wants to do, or walk him or her through over the telephone,
both of us sitting in front of our machines. As another example, consider this. Several years ago,
I wanted to call an old friend. At first, I tried to remember her number, but as hard as I tried, it
did not come back. Then I was looking for it in different places, but could not find it. Eventually
I gave up searching and trying to remember. For some reason, I picked up the phone: my hands
began to move over the dial composing a number without looking at it. Through the receiver, I
heard a combination of sounds that rang familiar. When I had finished dialing, I knew I had the
right number even before I heard my old friend’s voice on the other end.
In both of these instances, I failed remembering something and articulating it in words. In the
first instance, it was a practice, a patterned way of doing something. In the second instance, it was
a fact, something one can state in so many words. If I had taken a written test, such as those that
are used in formal schooling, I would have failed, utterly so, in both instances. That is, my test
responses would have been interpreted to mean that I did not know. Fortunately, I did not have to
take a test; in fact, virtually all circumstances in which I operate on a daily basis and which show
what “I” know have little to do with testing situations.
In both situations, I knew as soon as I was interacting with the computer and telephone,
respectively. It was not that these items were just there but my knowing was in the interaction
and anyone watching me would have observed it as such. More so, “my” knowing was in the