Complementary Strategies: Why we use our hands when we think

Avant: Trends in Interdisciplinary Studies 3 (T):161-175 (2012)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

A complementary strategy can be defined as any organizing activity which recruits external elements to reduce cognitive loads. Typical organizing activities include pointing, arranging the position and orientation of nearby objects, writing things down, manipulating counters, rulers or other artifacts that can encode the state of a process or simplify perception. To illustrate the idea of a complementary strategy, a simple experiment was performed in which subjects were asked to determine the dollar value of collections of coins. In the no-hands condition, subjects were not allowed to touch the coin images or to move their hands in any way. In the hands condition, they were allowed to use their hands and fingers however they liked. Significant improvements in time and number of errors were observed when S’s used their hands over when they did not. To explain these facts, a brief account of some commonly observed complementary strategies is presented, and an account of their potential benefits to perception, memory and attention.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,593

External links

  • This entry has no external links. Add one.
Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Complementary Strategies: Why we use our hands when we think.David Kirsh - 1995 - Proceedings of the 17th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (T):161-175.
Complementary Strategies - Why We Use Our Hands When We Think.David Kirsh - 1995 - Proceedings of the Seventeenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (T):161-175.
Why We Use Our Hands When We Think.David Kirsh - 1995 - Proceedings of the Seventheenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
Developing Hands-On Learning Activities for Philosophy Courses.Brett Gaul - 2015 - American Association of Philosophy Teachers Studies in Pedagogy 1:169-178.
Contrastive knowledge.Jonathan Schaffer - 2005 - In Tamar Szabó Gendler & John Hawthorne (eds.), Oxford Studies in Epistemology. Oxford University Press. pp. 235.
Punishing 'Dirty Hands'—Three Justifications.Stephen Wijze - 2013 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 16 (4):879-897.
Closure On Skepticism.Sherrilyn Roush - 2010 - Journal of Philosophy 107 (5):243-256.
What's It Like to Be a BIV? A Dialogue.Michael Veber - 2015 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 1 (4):734--756.

Analytics

Added to PP
2017-02-17

Downloads
0

6 months
0

Historical graph of downloads

Sorry, there are not enough data points to plot this chart.
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

David Kirsh
University of California, San Diego

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references