Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Everyday problem solving is different in significant ways from the kinds of problem solving that take place in laboratory mlcroworld settings. Attempts to simplify have excluded important factors that can help us understand aspects of the problem solving that are problems from the point of view of the laboratory. This paper describes several research projects that have examined problem solving in nonlaboratory settings, and some of the Implications of these studies for cognitive science. The current notions of distributed cognitive processing can be extended in a powerful way to the socially distributed problem solving characteristic of everyday settings. This notion of socially distributed problem solving can then reflect back on individual problem solving, which is acquired and often carried out in social settings.