I can see this - it makes a wee bit of sense. The authors focus in this piece on a review of the empirical research suggesting that social sharing of memories is one of the most mundane examples of distributed cognition.

Below is the introduction to the much longer paper, which can be read at the link in the title.

Memory Studies; 2014: 7(3):285–297
DOI: 10.1177/1750698014530619

Couples as socially distributed cognitive systems: Remembering in everyday social and material contexts

Celia B Harris, Amanda J Barnier, John Sutton. and Paul G Keil

Abstract

In everyday life remembering occurs within social contexts, and theories from a number of disciplines predict cognitive and social benefits of shared remembering. Recent debates have revolved around the possibility that cognition can be distributed across individuals and material resources, as well as across groups of individuals. We review evidence from a maturing program of empirical research in which we adopted the lens of distributed cognition to gain new insights into the ways that remembering might be shared in groups. Across four studies, we examined shared remembering in intimate couples. We studied their collaboration on more simple memory tasks as well as their conversations about shared past experiences. We also asked them about their everyday memory compensation strategies in order to investigate the complex ways that couples may coordinate their material and interpersonal resources. We discuss our research in terms of the costs and benefits of shared remembering, features of the group and features of the remembering task that influence the outcomes of shared remembering, the cognitive and interpersonal functions of shared remembering, and the interaction between social and material resources. More broadly, this interdisciplinary research program suggests the potential for empirical psychology research to contribute to ongoing interdisciplinary discussions of distributed cognition.

Socially distributed remembering: theoretical and empirical background

Remembering the past plays a crucial role in our lives, our identities, our plans, and our social relationships (Harris et al., 2013b), and the fact that we frequently talk about the past with others has important consequences for the way we remember (Campbell, 2003; Harris et al., 2008, 2010; Pasupathi, 2001; Sutton et al., 2010; Weldon, 2000).In the current article, we apply the theoretical framework of distributed cognition (Barnier et al., 2008; Hutchins, 1995; Sutton, 2006) to group remembering. As we have argued elsewhere (Barnier et al., 2008; Sutton et al., 2010), a distributed cognition framework provides explanatory power for complex social memory phenomena; it drives novel research questions, new methods, and empirically testable hypotheses. In the current article, we update this argument by presenting findings from a maturing program of empirical research on shared remembering in couples. 

Distributed cognition: definitions

The distributed cognition framework suggests that cognitive states and processes are sometimes distributed, such that neural and bodily resources couple in coordinated ways with material or social resources to accomplish cognitive tasks (Barnier et al., 2008; Clark, 1997). According to this view, external resources can become parts both of occurrent cognitive processes and of enduring integrated cognitive systems: ‘When parts of the environment are coupled to the brain in the right way, they become parts of the mind’ (Chalmers, 2008: 1; see also Sutton, 2010). This definition begs the question of what the ‘right way’ is for coupling to occur. Clark and Chalmers (1998) pro- posed the following criteria:

1. That the resource be reliably available and typically invoked …
2. That any information thus retrieved be more-or-less automatically endorsed …
3. That information contained in the resource should be easily accessible as and when required. (Clark, 2010: 6–7)

While debate continues to refine these conditions (Sterelny, 2010; Sutton, 2010; Sutton et al., 2010), we can usefully adopt them for the purposes of this exposition, to motivate and test against empirical research.

What kinds of cognitive tasks?

There are three compatible possibilities for the kinds of cognitive tasks that lend themselves to distribution across internal and external resources. First, cognitive distribution might enable the accomplishment of highly complex tasks that cannot be completed by an individual alone, such as navigating a ship (Hutchins, 1995). Second, cognitive distribution might enable individuals to accomplish tasks ‘better’ in some way, or more efficiently, or at least differently and with different outcomes from doing the tasks alone. Third, cognitive distribution might enable the maintenance of capacity to complete everyday tasks (which used to be done alone) as individual cognitive resources decline or fail. For instance, Clark and Chalmers (1998) described a thought experiment regarding ‘Otto’, a man with Alzheimer’s, whose notebook entries have literally become the con-tents of his memory. In observing strikingly similar real-world cases, Dennett (1996) noted that older individuals often ‘load their home environments with ultra-familiar landmarks, triggers for habits … Taking them out of their homes is literally separating them from large parts of their minds’ (see also Dahlbäck et al., 2013; Drayson and Clark, in press).

Socially distributed cognition

Cognitive distribution is arguably an everyday phenomenon, and the examples used to illustrate it are likewise everyday, like the cocktail waiter who relies on the shape of the glasses to remember ingredients in drinks, or an artist using a sketchpad (Clark, 1997; Van Leeuwen et al., 1999). Despite the field’s focus on material resources, distributed cognitive systems are likely to involve both material and social resources (Barnier et al., 2008; Sutton et al., 2010). In the current article, we review empirical research motivated by the view that social sharing of memories is one of the most mundane examples of distributed cognition (see also Barnier et al., 2008; Barnier, 2010).

We focus here on intimate couples remembering together. We have a number of reasons to expect that they are a particularly good example of the kinds of groups in which socially distributed cognition occurs (see also Wu et al., 2008). Adapting Clark and Chalmers’ (1998) criteria for considering objects as part of cognition, Tollefsen (2006) suggested that Person A can be incorporated into Person B’s cognitive processing under the following conditions: (1) if Person A is avail-able and typically invoked; (2) if Person B accepts Person A’s information without question; (3) if Person A is readily accessible by Person B; and (4) if information stored by Person A was endorsed by Person B at some point. Long-married couples who frequently discuss their past and future across their lives may meet these criteria (see also Sutton et al., 2010; Tollefsen, 2006). Put another way, couples are ‘persisting integrated systems’ (cf. Rupert, 2010; see also Wegner, 1987; Wegner et al., 1985).

Making couples the unit of analysis can yield insights not available when studying individuals (see also Hinsz et al., 1997). That is, groups such as couples may exhibit emergence when they remember together; meaning the group product is different from the aggregation of individual memories (see also Theiner, 2013; Theiner and O’Connor, 2010). Such emergence may be positive (such as the generation of new information) or negative (such as the introduction of errors). Wegner’s (1987) Transactive Memory theory predicts benefits of shared remembering as one kind of emergence: ‘group memory structures develop and become capable of memory feats far beyond those that might be accomplished by any individual’ (Wegner, 1995: 319).

Shared remembering in experimental psychology

In cognitive psychology, the collaborative recall paradigm was developed to measure the impact of remembering with others (Weldon and Bellinger, 1997). Using this method, the memory output of a group is compared to the pooled or aggregated (non-redundant) output of the same number of individuals remembering alone (see Basden et al., 2000; Harris et al., 2008; Rajaram and Pereira-Pasarin, 2010). This comparison is useful for considering whether groups show the kind of emergent properties that would be predicted by conceptualising them as distributed cognitive systems, since it indexes whether the recall of a collaborative group is quantitatively different from the sum of its parts.

Collaborative groups reliably remember less than aggregated groups; that is, they show collaborative inhibition. This ‘cost’ of collaboration has been demonstrated for materials such as word lists, stories, pictures and historical facts (see Harris et al., 2008). Typically, groups of strangers are tested (Rajaram and Pereira-Pasarin, 2010), although groups of friends also show collaborative inhibition (Harris et al., 2013a). However, a study by Meade et al. (2009) found that expert pilots, who are trained to communicate efficiently, reversed the typical effect and showed benefits of collaboration – collaborative facilitation – when remembering aviation-relevant information, such that collaborative groups remembered more than aggregated groups.

A handful of studies suggest that intimate couples may also benefit from remembering together. For instance, Ross et al. (2004) found that older couples made fewer memory errors on a shopping list task when they collaborated, whereas Johansson et al. (2005) found that a subset of older couples – those high on division of responsibility and on agreement about expertise – were relatively less impaired by collaboration. However, these studies have not reliably demonstrated the memory facilitation that we might expect, and a number of other studies have failed to find any benefits of shared remembering in couples at all (e.g. Gould et al., 2002).

In our studies, we extended the methodology of the standard collaborative recall paradigm to study shared remembering in its everyday social context. We focused on intimate couples – the kinds of groups who regularly remember together. We also focused on a range of memory tasks, from basic word lists to significant, shared autobiographical events. Finally, we focused on the communication and interaction during collaboration and other differences between couples (e.g. relationship intimacy). We examined whether the benefits of shared remembering, as suggested by a distributed cognition framework, may be identifiable in certain kinds of groups and for certain kinds of memories.

Interesting research. The definitive book on this topic remains Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman, although his system I and system II distinction is slightly different than what is being discussed here. The current study is looking at developmental learning skills, but it too is distinguishing between explicit (more conscious) and implicit learning (less conscious).

Strongest evidence yet of two distinct human cognitive systems

Date: March 18, 2014
Source: University at Buffalo

Summary:
Cognitive scientists may have produced the strongest evidence yet that humans have separate and distinct cognitive systems with which they can categorize, classify, and conceptualize their worlds. The systems also may have different courses of decline in cognitive aging, which would have ramifications for remediation and compensation in dementia.

A new study presents the strongest evidence yet that humans have separate and distinct cognitive systems with which they can categorize, classify, and conceptualize their worlds. Credit: © Terence Mendoza / Fotolia

Cognitive scientists may have produced the strongest evidence yet that humans have separate and distinct cognitive systems with which they can categorize, classify, and conceptualize their worlds.

"Our finding that there are distinct, discrete systems has implications for the fields of child development and cognitive aging," says lead researcher, cognitive psychologist J. David Smith, PhD, of the University at Buffalo.

"These distinct systems may have different developmental courses as the cortex matures," he says, "meaning that children may categorize differently than adults, using different systems at different ages. This would have educational and training implications in cases of developmental disability."

He says the systems also may have different courses of decline in cognitive aging, which would have ramifications for remediation and compensation in dementia.

The study "Deferred Feedback Sharply Dissociates Implicit and Explicit Category Learning," was conducted by Smith and colleagues at UB and at the University of California at Santa Barbara. It was published in the Feb. 7 edition of the journal Psychological Science.

The age-old question of whether humans have discrete cognitive systems operating on different levels that are more or less conscious, more or less available to introspection, and so forth, has been debated for years.

"This issue of whether there are separate cognitive systems famously arose regarding humans' declarative and procedural memory and in the field of categorization," Smith says.

"Cognitive neuroscientists have hypothesized that humans have distinguishable systems for categorizing the objects in their world -- one more explicit (i.e., conscious and available to introspection), one less so, or more implicit," says Smith.

To grasp the differences between these two types of learning, Smith recommends that we remember certain distinctions in our performance of the tasks of daily life.

"For instance, when you select a cereal named 'Chocoholic' from the store shelf," he says, "consider why you are doing so. Is it a deliberate, explicit choice, or is it possibly an implicit-procedural chocolate reaction, one triggered by processes, memories and so on, of which you are generally unaware?"

"Because of the considerable controversy surrounding the question of whether we have more than one cognitive system, researchers have continued to seek models that distinguish the processes of explicit and implicit category learning," Smith says, "and this study presents the clearest distinction yet found between these systems.

"To make this discovery," he says, "we borrowed an influential model from our studies of macaque monkeys, which illustrates the valuable synergies that exist between primate and human research."

Their technique was to ask humans to work for blocks of trials without any corrective feedback, and then deliver feedback when they were finished. Smith likens this process to an undergraduate testing situation in which the student taking a test does not get item-by-item feedback, but receives a summary score once the test is completed.

Because this manipulation, he says, prevents the formation of automatic (implicit) stimulus-response associations, Smith and his colleagues hypothesized that it would undermine the processes of conditioning and eliminate the possibility of implicit category learning.

"Implicit category learning," he says, "is a system that depends on trial-by-trial feedback of response correctness and incorrectness to establish the stimulus-response associations that allow implicit learning and responding.

"In fact," Smith says, "the blocked-feedback technique made implicit category learning impossible. We then used extensive trial-strategy analyses and formal-mathematical modeling to demonstrate this conclusively.

"So we were able to selectively unplug one category-learning system -- the implicit system -- but leave the explicit-conscious system functioning and intact," he says.

Smith et al. even found that, facing a task that could only be learned implicitly, participants with blocked feedback turned futilely to conscious strategies that were inadequate, because this was all they could do when implicit category learning was defeated.

"In the area of categorization research," Smith says, "the issue of single vs. multiple systems is nearly closed. The evidence is now very strong that there are multiple category-learning systems -- in particular, the explicit-conscious and the implicit-procedural system."

Smith says it is fascinating to consider where in cognitive evolution the roots of the explicit-declarative categorization system lie. He and his colleagues have found the beginnings of this system in non-human primates like rhesus macaques and capuchin monkeys. Interestingly, though, thus far pigeons have shown no evidence of having distinguishable explicit and implicit systems.

Smith's co-authors were Joseph Boomer and Alexandria C. Zakrzewski, graduate students, and Barbara Church PhD, senior research scientist, all in the UB Department of Psychology, and graduate student Jessica Roeder and F. Gregory Ashby, PhD, both in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara.

Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by University at Buffalo. The original article was written by Pat Donovan. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Journal Reference: 
Smith, JD, Boomer, J, Zakrzewski, AC, Roeder, JL, Church, BA, Ashby, FG. (2013, Dec 13). Deferred Feedback Sharply Dissociates Implicit and Explicit Category Learning. Psychological Science; 25(2): 447-457. ePub ahead of print. DOI: 10.1177/0956797613509112