David Kirsh
Professor of Cognitive Science
University of California, San Diego (UCSD)
Summary
I am a Professor and past chair of the Cognitive Science department at UCSD, where I have been since the department started in 1989. My research interests vary, but all turn on understanding how we are tightly coupled to the outside world, and how that interactive coupling has shaped the inner and outer workings of our cognitive skills and capacities. Over the years I have looked at how the environment can be configured to simplify and extend cognition, including how we intelligently use space to cope with the complexity of everyday life, and how we use external representations as an interactive tool for thought. Most recently, I have been studying the ways humans use their bodies as things to think with, specifically in dance making and choreographic cognition. My approach combines theory, experiment and ethnographic study. Because my focus is on how we interact with the environment I am sensitive to the relevance of cognitive science for design. I have strong interests in the cognitive foundations of design, and especially how we human use not just our brains and bodies as mechanisms for thought, but actual physical and now digital objects. We think with things.
I am a Professor and past chair of the Cognitive Science department at UCSD, where I have been since the department started in 1989. My research interests vary, but all turn on understanding how we are tightly coupled to the outside world, and how that interactive coupling has shaped the inner and outer workings of our cognitive skills and capacities. Over the years I have looked at how the environment can be configured to simplify and extend cognition, including how we intelligently use space to cope with the complexity of everyday life, and how we use external representations as an interactive tool for thought. Most recently, I have been studying the ways humans use their bodies as things to think with, specifically in dance making and choreographic cognition. My approach combines theory, experiment and ethnographic study. Because my focus is on how we interact with the environment I am sensitive to the relevance of cognitive science for design. I have strong interests in the cognitive foundations of design, and especially how we human use not just our brains and bodies as mechanisms for thought, but actual physical and now digital objects. We think with things.
Current Institution | University of California, San Diego (UCSD) |
Current School | Social Sciences |
Department | Cognitive Science |
Disciplines | |
Address | Cognitive Science 0515 La Jolla California 92093-0515 United States Phone: 8588222475 |
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MIT
Post Doc,
Artificial Intelligence Lab, in Computer Science
(Jan 1984 - Mar 1989)
Oxford University
Wadham
D. Phil,
Philosophy
(Sep 1976 - Sep 1983)
Publication Summary
Books
Other Publications
Embodied Cognition and the Magical Future of Interaction Design
By David Kirsh
ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction,
Vol. 20,
No. 1,
2013,
pp.1-3
Worldlets, 3D Thumbnails for Wayfinding in Virtual Environments
By David Kirsh
Virtual Environments UIST97,
1997,
pp.21-30
Worldlets, 3D Thumbnails for 3D Browsing
By David Kirsh
Proceedings of the Computer-Human Interaction Society,
1998,
pp.163-170
- 1 of 12
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Papers
Complementary Strategies - Why we use our hands when we think
By David Kirsh,
Proceedings of the Seventeenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society,
NJ, United States
Creative Cognition in Choreography
By David Kirsh,
Proceedings of 2nd International Conference on Computational Creativity,
CA, United States
Interaction, External Representation and Sense Making
By David Kirsh,
Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society,
TX, United States
- 1 of 3
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