The Distribution of Representation.

Recent cognitive science frameworks depicting cognitive processing as "distributed" across persons and environments require new ways of conceptualizing representation. That is, if representation is to be retained as an explanatory concept, accounts must foreground the interactive participation of persons and of different representational formats, rather than cast it as an internal or external phenomenon. This paper is directed towards such an account. It draws upon findings in a wide-scale, multi-year study investigating cognitive practices of research scientists in two university research laboratories. The research is guided by the assumption that cognitive practices generally and science practices specifically comprise a complex system of persons, devices, artifacts, instruments, texts, and traditions. We use an interdisciplinary methodological approach that combines ethnographic observations and analyses with cognitive-historical analysis. Here we present two interrelated interpretive notions emerging from our analysis that have particular relevance to the project of providing an account of representation compatible with the assumption that cognitive processing is distributed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]