Abstract
Cognition is predominantly seen as information processing in multidisciplinary landscape of cognition studies, despite having had a formidable opposition from embodied and embedded perspectives in the last few decades. This paper analyses cognitive processes involved in different task domains of Kashmiri carpet weaving practice from the theoretical frameworks of cognitivism and situated-distributed cognition. After introducing the practice and its task domains (Section −1), paradigmatic cognitive activities involved in them are discussed and how these are explained by the two theoretical paradigms and why the latter framework explains these processes better (Section-2). During this discussion (Section – 3), a way via culture impacts the practice and resultant cognitive operations turns out to be workspace of the actors.
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Notes
We restrict to manual setting in the paper.
The final design of this carpet was later drawn on ‘inch-square graph sheet’ and similar manipulations were observed.
This is a design heuristic used by designers whereby for every feet, 2-in. of border is carved.
The analysis of these sessions is reserved for a separate paper
Since think-aloud sessions are under analysis, it is yet to be seen whether this fact had a systematic influence on the accuracy of the code generation. That distance is reduced, however, is clearly visible.
In single weaver setting, the weaver, after reaching the mid-point on the loom, reads the instruction as right to left, and adjusts actions accordingly.
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Homi Bhabha Fellowships Council, Mumbai for supporting and funding this work and Homi Bhabha Centre For Science Education (HBCSE), TIFR, Mumbai for providing me the required research environment. Part of data collection was done as Postdoctoral Associate in the Consciousness Studies Programme of the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bengaluru. I am thankful to them for funding the fieldwork during 2015. I am thankful to Sajad Nazir and Abdul Rashid Bhat, both in Srinagar, for permitting me to reproduce the extracts of their talim roll and graph in this paper. The written consent of respondents, for reproducing their photographs and works, has been obtained.
Funding
This work has been supported and funded by two-year research fellowship (2017–2019) by Homi Bhabha Fellowships Council, Mumbai, India.
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Kaur, G.D. Cognitivism or Situated-Distributed Cognition? Assessing Kashmiri Carpet Weaving Practice from the Two Theoretical Paradigms. Rev.Phil.Psych. 11, 917–937 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-019-00455-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-019-00455-8