Book Reading #45 - Things That Make Us Smart

Chapter 3: The Power of Representation
Summary:
Cognitive artifacts refer to sounds, gestures, and symbols that we can use to refer to objects, things, and concepts. Using these different ideas for artifacts we can represent a lot of tasks. Hard tasks become easier if the correct representation is chosen. 

Discussion:
I think this chapter was longer than it had to be. I couldn't really think of anything else to write besides my summary. I think using the idea of representation is very important because it allows the human mind to recall information that would alone be hard to recall.

Chapter 4: Fitting the Artifact to the Person
Summary:
There different types of representation, surface and internal. Surface representation is where we see everything up front and there is no hidden meaning. The example Norman uses is his book we are reading. Internal representation has more meaning behind the appearance. The example Norman uses is a calculator. These two different types of representation can be used to fit the task of the person and make the task easier to accomplish.

Discussion: 
I think the examples in this chapter were most interesting because that seems like what most of the reading was. I liked when he talked about representation through Roman numerals.