>For relatively high-risk/esoteric/cutting edge topics check
>the literature on "Situation theory", "Ecological approaches
>to Cognition".  I think that area has a good chance of being
>at least a mini-Kuhnian breakthrough pretty soon.

Also related are Distributed Cognition and Activity Theory, which have
similar models to the above. I think together they form a growing area
of "post-cognitive psychology" that I find very interesting. In a sense,
I think what Han suggests may almost have already happened - the paradigm
shift away from looking at individual cognition to looking at cognition as
a collective activity assisted by the environment, artefacts etc, is a big
trend. Certainly in the field of CSCW (computer supported cooperative work)
this is held to be more or less the norm.

Those unfamiliar with these terms are recommended to read:
Ed Hutchins, "Cognition in the wild", MIT Press, 1995

Bonni Nardi (ed), Context and consciousness: activity theory and human-
computer interaction", MIT Press, 1996

Lucy Suchman, "Plans and Situated Actions", Cambridge University Press, 1987

Oh, and Susan Leigh Star has a *wonderful* paper that she published in the
journal Systems Practice on these matters, but I don't have the reference.


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          COMPUTERS, COMMUNICATION AND MENTAL MODELS
          Day, D. & Kovacs, D. (Eds.)(1996). London: Taylor & Francis. ISBN
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