ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how assumptions about cognition from a 'macro' perspective may differ from assumptions that have been made from 'micro' perspectives. Macro approaches consider cognition to be a process that is 'situated' or 'distributed'. It also assumes that understanding the 'situation' is a critical component to a computational theory of cognition. From the micro-perspective on cognition, there is a natural tendency to extrapolate from the measures that provided well-defined performance functions in the laboratory. Micro-approaches to cognition prefer to focus on one dominant measure to index quality. From the macro perspective on cognition, there is great skepticism about whether the dynamics of many natural situations can be captured using event probabilities or time-based measures alone. The chapter concludes with considering the use of synthetic task environments as one means for wrestling with both the theoretical assumptions and the measurement challenges of a 'macro' approach to cognition.
