Cognition and Technology

This new collection of contributions to the field of Cognitive Technology (CT) provides the (to date) widest spectrum of the state of the art in the discipline — a disciple dedicated to humane factors in tool design. The reader will find here a summary of past research as well as an overview of new areas for future investigations. The collection contains an extensive CT agenda identifying many as yet unsolved, CT-related, design issues. An exciting new development is the concept of ‘natural technology’. Some examples of natural technologies are discussed and the merits of empirical investigations (into what they are and how they develop), of interest to cognitive scientists and designers of new (corrective, digital) technologies, are pointed out. Another distinctive feature of the collection is that it provides examples of scientists’ tools; important, too, is its emphasis on ethics in tool design. The collection ends with a provocative coda (any responses can appear in the new, annual, CT forum of the Pragmatics and Cognition journal). The collection will appeal to all scientists, humanists and professionals interested in the interface between human cognitive processes and the technologies that augment them.