Emotion and Cognition: Recommendations
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Emotion tests the limits of experimental approaches to research. It is a messy concept that is difficult to observe and nearly impossible to measure. This means that researchers who wish to examine emotion and cognition in concert must look beyond the conventional research methods that have heretofore kept research on emotion to a minimum (Kaufman, 1996).

People like Patricia Churchland, a professor at the University of California at San Diego, appear short-sighted when considering the topic of emotion. She reports that "what's so exciting . . . is that the philosophical questions raised by the Greeks [regarding emotion] are coming within the province of science" (Churchland, as quoted in Lemonick, 1995). Churchland's excitement in thinking of emotion as a scientific topic illustrates the strength of her traditional scientific paradigm - a paradigm that has limited the study of emotion up to this point.

A recent program announcement for "Basic and Translational Research in Emotion" by the National Institute for the Humanities (NIH) calls for mixed methods. Specifically, they are looking to fund studies that will produce statistics without losing the rich details inherent in the topic of emotion (NIH, 2000). While the methods requested show the pervasiveness of traditional research studies, a traditional thought collective, and perhaps even a cultural bias, the NIH goes on to specifically point out that "interactions of emotion with cognition also constitute an important area of study" (NIH, 2000).

The question then becomes, in what ways can we study an idea like distributed emotion. I believe that the best methods for discovering if there is any truth to the notion of distributed emotion is to conduct ethnographic case studies. In this way I think that Edwin Hutchins' Cognition in the Wild (1995) can serve as a good model as to the kind of rich detail that can be obtained in this type of study of an equally messy topic - distributed cognition.

Consider a classroom. Through the use of videotaping, audiotaping, participant interviews and reflective journals and perhaps even think aloud protocols, I believe that distributed emotion, should it exist, could be captured. Specific areas of interest within the classroom include patterns of activity, roles played by participants, artifacts both in production and archival, conversations, and social interactions. A thorough study of a single environment should provide multiple stimuli for emotional response and thus would provide answers to many of my questions.

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feather images © Tara Prindle 2000, NativeTech: Native American Technology and Art. Internet URL: http://www.nativetech.org
Emotion and Cognition © Courtney Glazer 2000