Human Cognition and Social Agent Technology is written for readers who are curious about what human (social) cognition is, and whether and how advanced software programs or robots can become social agents. Topics addressed in 16 peer-reviewed chapters by researchers at the forefront of agent research include: Narrative intelligence and implementations of story-telling systems, socially situated avatars and ‘conscious’ software agents, cognitive architectures for socially intelligent agents, agents with emotions, design issues for interactive systems, artificial life agents, contributions to agent design from artistic practice, and a Cognitive Technology view on living with socially intelligent agents. The book addresses both software and robotic agents. On the one hand justice is done to the scientific and technical aspects, and on the other hand the reader will learn about pioneering technological developments which are necessary for a public discourse and critical evaluation on where social agent technology is leading us and how such a development can be shaped in order to meet the social, cultural and cognitive needs of humans. The book is suitable for students, researchers, and everyone interested in this emerging and quickly growing field, it does not require any specialist background knowledge. (Series B)

Our species has been a maker and user of tools for over two million years, but "cognitive technology" began with language. Cognition is thinking, and thinking has been "distributed" for at least the two hundred millennia that we have been using speech to interact and collaborate, allowing us to do collectively far more than any of us could have done individually. The invention of writing six millennia ago and print six centuries ago has distributed cognition still more widely and quickly, among people as well as their texts. But in recent decades something radically new has been happening: Advanced cognitive technologies, especially computers and the Worldwide Web, are beginning to redistribute cognition in unprecedented ways, not only among people and static texts, but among people and dynamical machines. This not only makes possible new forms of human collaboration, but new forms of cognition. This book examines the nature and prospects of distributed cognition, providing a conceptual framework for understanding it, and showcasing case studies of its development. This volume was originally published as a Special Issue of Pragmatics & Cognition (14:2, 2006).

Cognitive science is an important tool to understand all the cognitive processes of the human brain, such as memory, attention, reasoning, etc. This book on cognitive science explores the scope of this field, which includes cognitive psychology, cognitive pedagogics, psycholinguistics, cognitive linguistics, educational technology, etc. Researches and studies performed by experts across the globe have been presented in this book in a coherent manner. It will serve as a valuable source of reference for graduate and post graduate students and will provide them innovative insights into this discipline.

Assistive technology for cognition is technology which can be used to enable, enhance, or extend cognitive function. This book systematically examines how cutting-edge digital technologies can assist the cognitive function of people with cognitive impairments, with the potential to revolutionize rehabilitation. Technologies are reviewed which direct attention, remind, recognize, prompt, and generally guide people through activities of daily living. Written by experts in neuropsychology and technology development, Assistive Technology for Cognition provides a comprehensive overview of the efficacy of technologies to assist people with brain impairments. Based on the list provided by the International Classification of Function, each chapter covers a different cognitive function; namely, attention, memory, affect, perception, executive function, language, numeracy, sequencing, and navigation onto which existing and future assistive technologies for cognition are mapped. This structure provides in-depth research in an accessible way, and will allow practitioners to move from an assessment of cognitive deficits to the prescription of an appropriate assistive technology for cognition. The chapters also make suggestions for future developments. Assistive Technology for Cognition will be of great interest to clinicians and researchers working in brain injury rehabilitation, technology developers, and also to students in clinical psychology, neuropsychology, and allied health disciplines.

It is widely accepted that the key to rising incomes for workers, for investors, and (indirectly) for welfare recipients is innovation. New ideas provide opportunities for investment in new products, new processes, and new markets. Exploitation of these opportunities by intrapreneurs and entrepreneurs gives rise to increases in labor productivity, which in turn lead to higher primary incomes for workers and investors and, via government redistributive mechanisms, larger transfers to welfare recipients. Since technology is the driver of innovation and the key to the subsequent economic and distributional benefits of this innovation, there is a need for researchers and businesspersons to have access to up-to-date information on emerging technologies and the business opportunities they provide. Technological Breakthroughs and Future Business Opportunities in Education, Health, and Outer Space discusses the economic, social, and cultural benefits that new technologies can provide in multidisciplinary industries with a unique emphasis on looking towards the impacts of these technologies across the next two decades. Within this theme, the book discusses the recent trends, future developments, and business opportunities surrounding new technologies including information technology and biotechnology. Additionally, the book investigates recent demands and disruptions in the health and education sectors as well as recent developments and forthcoming opportunities in the outer space sector and how newer technologies can enable and meet the growing demands of these industries. While covering all these technologies and their applications, this book is an ideal reference work for entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs, teachers, technologists, analysts, IT specialists, engineers, policymakers, medical professionals, government officials, space agencies, financial planners, public officials, and researchers and students working in areas that include but are not limited to technology, education, public health, medicine, business and management, aeronautics, and public policy.

Edwin Hutchins combines his background as an anthropologist and an open ocean racing sailor and navigator in this account of how anthropological methods can be combined with cognitive theory to produce a new reading of cognitive science. His theoretical insights are grounded in an extended analysis of ship navigation—its computational basis, its historical roots, its social organization, and the details of its implementation in actual practice aboard large ships. The result is an unusual interdisciplinary approach to cognition in culturally constituted activities outside the laboratory—"in the wild." Hutchins examines a set of phenomena that have fallen in the cracks between the established disciplines of psychology and anthropology, bringing to light a new set of relationships between culture and cognition. The standard view is that culture affects the cognition of individuals. Hutchins argues instead that cultural activity systems have cognitive properties of their own that are different from the cognitive properties of the individuals who participate in them. Each action for bringing a large naval vessel into port, for example, is informed by culture: the navigation team can be seen as a cognitive and computational system. Introducing Navy life and work on the bridge, Hutchins makes a clear distinction between the cognitive properties of an individual and the cognitive properties of a system. In striking contrast to the usual laboratory tasks of research in cognitive science, he applies the principal metaphor of cognitive science—cognition as computation (adopting David Marr's paradigm)—to the navigation task. After comparing modern Western navigation with the method practiced in Micronesia, Hutchins explores the computational and cognitive properties of systems that are larger than an individual. He then turns to an analysis of learning or change in the organization of cognitive systems at several scales. Hutchins's conclusion illustrates the costs of ignoring the cultural nature of cognition, pointing to the ways in which contemporary cognitive science can be transformed by new meanings and interpretations. A Bradford Book

Emerging Cognitive Neuroscience and Related Technologies, from the National Research Council, identifies and explores several specific research areas that have implications for U.S. national security, and should therefore be monitored consistently by the intelligence community. These areas include: neurophysiological advances in detecting and measuring indicators of psychological states and intentions of individuals the development of drugs or technologies that can alter human physical or cognitive abilities advances in real-time brain imaging breakthroughs in high-performance computing and neuronal modeling that could allow researchers to develop systems which mimic functions of the human brain, particularly the ability to organize disparate forms of data. As these fields continue to grow, it will be imperative that the intelligence community be able to identify scientific advances relevant to national security when they occur. To do so will require adequate funding, intelligence analysts with advanced training in science and technology, and increased collaboration with the scientific community, particularly academia. A key tool for the intelligence community, this book will also be a useful resource for the health industry, the military, and others with a vested interest in technologies such as brain imaging and cognitive or physical enhancers.