Models and Theories in Human-Computer Interaction/WikiBooks as an Example of D.Cog

Distributed Cognition is a theory that says that cognition should be studied not only neurologically within a person’s brain or mental space, but also should consider person’s individual and social activities in his or her environment.

WikiBook is a collaborative portal where users can post information about their knowledge. This resource can be seen as a good example of Distributed Cognition Theory. Following are the key components involved in interaction between users and WikiBook:

• User should have some knowledge/opinion about the topic that he or she is going to share. This is cognition of the user.
• User should interact with technologies to type in and post the information he or she wants to share. Here we see how HCI and DCog theory are intertwining with each other when the user manipulates technological tools to perform a task.
• When information becomes visible to other users, they can modify it or add their own knowledge/opinion to the post. Now it is becoming Socially Distributed Cognition.
  

In this example we can see the interaction between humans, and interaction between humans and technologies (tools) which is the main idea of Distributed Cognition.