Bauters, MerjaAalto University, FinlandCILC II – Institutions, Interactivity, Individuals2nd International Conference on Interactivity, Language and Cognition, September 11-12, 2014, Jyväskylä

Experiences, physical artefacts in communication

Content

• Why this topic…

• Pragmatism communicative approach

• Learning and habits

• The essence of experience

• Meaning creation through common ground

Why this topic…

• Experiences, physical artefacts are essential in informal

learning

• Technology enhanced social interaction to support

knowledge sharing among peers.

• Various training or learning programs and technologies to

support the capture and sharing of tacit knowledge

embedded in practice experience. by Cheng et all (2014)

• In line with the claim of Welsh, Wanberg, Brown, and

Simmering’s (2003): the integration of personnel training

with on-demand job support and professional development

might become a future direction of workplace e-learning

Why this topic…

• Future focus:

• Cheng et all (2014) stated: many studies are limited to

the superficial use and analysis of the tools without taking

into account the organizational contexts that may affect

the essential attributes of social and collaborative

behaviour, such as trust, voluntariness, and self-

directness – where do these emerge?

During this period practitioners feel like novices, but without

having the excuses or discounts on performance normally

accorded to novices. The pain of change lies in the loss of

control over one’s practice when one's tacit knowledge ceases

to provide the necessary support; and the emotional dimension

is also of considerable importance. The common assumption

that change is partly a problem of `attitude' and partly a

process of learning new explicit knowledge is deceptive and

fallacious." Eraut 2004:261

Work context learning needs

• The context, feelings of “uncertainty/disturbance” are

needed for some kind of change to occur

• The halted moment, should support moment to become

conscious of our awareness

• Awareness will be directed

• Heightened/intensified perceiving of environment (context)

• Support for reasoning – finding “help” using social networks

• Potential for change is in the process

Pragmatism communicative approach"Thinking is shown in constant interaction with Doing and Communicating" (Eraut 2004 257)

Communicative perspective• According to Peirce, signs are interpreted within social, future-

oriented processes. Peircean sign theory holds that all thinking is

dialogical and has its basis on communication (Ransdell 2007,

see also Cunningham 1998) and that human thinking does not

merely happen in the brain, but involves use of external objects

and tools - signs.

• Thought, sense, thinking resides in the environment, in the tools

we use etc., thought is a semiosis

• In the knowledge-creation metaphor, knowledge is embedded in

mediating artefacts and skills and practices.

• People embody, objectify knowledge on these artefacts: scientific

theories, plans, models, instruments, and so on (Paavola,

Hakkarainen 2009) – object-orientedness of activity is the most

fundamental aspect of such inquiry.

Learning and habits

• Pragmatism gave habit a new meaning

• Habit is not only mindless routines, rather, it is a process

that is open for reflection and control (Kilpinen 2008:3 and

2009: 102, Bergman 2009: 10)

• “ […] that multiple reiterated behavior of the same kind,

under similar combinations of percepts and fancies,

produces a tendency, - the habit, - actually to behave in a

similar way under similar circumstances in the future” (EP

2:413, “Pragmatism” 1907)

Learning and habits

• “Intelligent habit upon which we shall act when occasion

presents itself” (EP 2:19 [1895]), might NOT be in the focus

of our awareness but can be easily brought up into

reflection to distinguish them from tacit knowledge

• Requires agency and effort

• When in doubt, seeing the environment with more “clarity”

Embodiment – towards experience

• “I believe it comes decidedly nearer the truth (though not really true)

that language resides in the tongue. In my opinion it is much more

true that the thoughts of a living writer are in any printed copy of his

book than that they are in his brain.” (Peirce CP 7.364).

• Albert Einstein, pointed out ”my pen is smarter than I am”

(Skagestad, 1999, p. 552)

• Signs do not constitute a separate conceptual realm, but are

connected, from the start, to the (material) world.

• Conceptions are not only in dialogue with fellow inquirers (+ shared

interpretations) or with the object of inquiry but always in relation to

both of these poles.

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The essence of experience

The essence of experience

• Based on Dewey’s views, experience is:

• The experience stretches, it is not static nor stable, its the relations

between all things in the environment and social

environment/culture. These are scoped by the past experiences and

directed by the anticipated future, so that existing habits, tools,

institutions etc. have an affect on the current situation where the

experience occurs "qualitative immediacy”. (Alhanen 2013)

• The qualitative immediacy is close to Peirce firstness. The past and

anticipated future makes a difference in attention – where the focus

will be and how the experience forms the meaning. The felt

experiences are not impressions, they are real even though these

would be hallucinations - they are felt as real. (MW 9 [DE):16-21.

MW 12 [RP]: 133. LW 12 [LTI]:52).

The essence of experience – process

• The experience is not something that happens inside the

subject, its not something where the subject forms a

representations of the things in the environment. Rather it is a

continuous interaction with environment, where the "inside

and outside" are not really separate but forma unified whole.

(LW 12 [LTI]: 73-74).

• "It is that reconstruction or reorganisation of experience which

adds to the meaning of experience, and which increases

ability to direct the course of subsequent experience.” (MW 9

[DE]: 83).

The essence of experience – time

• Experiences (their meaning / remembering) changes because

of anticipated future

• The present and anticipated future may transfer the perceived

past “feeling states and bodily desires, inherited from the past

but prevailing in the present, can rewrite the past in the

service of the present” (Prager 1998: 83)

• Reflected in Dewey's experience, building of continuos

experiences for learning

Common ground grows

“I have defined an index or indication as a sign by virtue of physical connection.

Experiental connection would be more explicit; for I mean by physical connection that

the signs occurs in our experience in relation to when and where of the object it

represents. The phrase “our experience” is significant. Experience is the course of life,

so far as we attend to it. “Our experience”, I say, because unless two persons had some

experience in common, they could not communicate, at all. If their experience were

identical, they could not furnish one another no information. But to the experience both

have in common, the several experiences of the two connect other occurrences: and so

we have shares in collective experience. An index connects a new experience with the

former experiences. (MS 797:10 in Bergman 2004:427).

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Meaning creation through common ground

Common Ground

• Peirce maintained that in order to understand

symbolic (or conceptual) signs, the utterer and

the interpreter have to refer (indexically) to some

common ground. So, as an example; if someone

shouts “There is a fire!”, it is not understandable

if we do not know where this utterance points to

(to the real world around us, to the fictional

world, or to somewhere else) (see Peirce CP

2.305; Bergman 2004, 416-429).

Sharing meaning…? Common ground

• “The universe must be well known and mutually

known to be known and agreed to exist, in some

sense, between speaker and hearer, between

the mind as appealing to its own further

consideration and the mind as so appealed to, or

there can be no communication, or 'common

ground,' at all.” (CP 3.621; CP 6.338; 8.179) In

Bergman 2002: 10)

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Common ground (Collateral experience)

• Common ground is needed to make communication, or sign-processes

(semiosis) understandable (see Clark & Brennan 1991; Peirce 1931-1958,

3.621)

• Collateral experience "serves a kind of double function, on the one hand

showing us some limits of the semiotic domain, while on the other reminding

us of the relevance of situational and contextual factors. In fact, the

crucial recognition of reality is achieved through indexical and

experiential means. See also Bergman 2002 (CP 2.337 [c. 1895]).

Bergman 2002: 9).

• Sharing experiences requires indices, signs which indicate, call, pinpoint,

direct the attention to their objects through which experiences could be

shared

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Indices, Artefacts & meaning

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• The meaning is NOT just symbolic but an indexical

relationship to artefacts and experiences …

• “The subject must be something which speaker and

listener both know by experience; or else, the assertion

must show the hearer by what process he can gain

experience” (MS 805:19-20 In Bergman 2004: 420)

• Indices play an important role in creating and maintaining

and developing common ground and contextualising the

communication

• They indicate where to place attention

(designations/subindicies), point to physical

objects/artefacts (reagents) and connect to familiar

experiences

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Thank you!

Merja BautersAalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture Helsinki – Finland firstname.surname@aalto.fi

The Learning Layers project is supported by the European Commission within the 7th Framework Programme under Grant Agreement #318209, under the DG Information society and Media (E3), unit of Cultural heritage and technology-enhanced learning. http://learning-layers.eu

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