| Will computer mediated technology 'enhance' or 'extend' consciousness? The question is situated in 'Communications History,' and reviews the problematic established by the Toronto School--in that various media affect significant shifts in cultural environments (Innis), and individual consciousness (McLuhan). Informed by the shift from orality to literacy (Ong), and the current shift from literate to electronic cultures (Heim and Landow)--each remains an inadequate model for the effects of media on cognition. The focus of the thesis is recontextualized to review early models of mind, Artificial Intelligence, and the emergence of a science of cognition.;A possible model for the structure and function of human cognition is presented in Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences; then operationalized in a process whereby raw intellectual capacities are encoded by symbols for subsequent representation by symbolic and cultural products (media). This paper contends computer mediated communication may have a significant impact on cognition (Salomon)--amplifying and extending the sensorium; upgrading and activating metacognitive constructs and by initiating higher-order thinking. |
