The last element of our definition is amplify cognition. So what does it mean for a tool to amplify cognition? We can define this in many different ways. One way I like to describe this is that using a tool to amplify cognition means to solve problems better. Where better can mean a lot of different things, like solving a problem with less mental effort, or in a shorter time, or more accurately. Or even allowing you to solve problems in a way that it wouldn’t be possible to solve without the aid of a tool. So amplify cognition means producing tool that help people think better. So a concept related to this one is the idea of cognitive artifact. What is a cognitive artifact? It's a tool that humans have built to help humans think better. So to make this more concrete, I'll give you a small example here. So if you are familiar with an abacus, what an abacus is a very interesting and simple cognitive artifact. So kids use an abacus to learn how to do arithmetic operations, right? And why do they use a tool like this? Well, because it's easier to think about the problem and solve the problem by manipulating and observing the elements that make the abacus. So the abacus is an example of a cognitive artifact. Without this artifact, we would have to think everything with our mind rather than with our eyes and our hands. So now I want to make this concept even more concrete by giving you a little exercise. So the exercise is the following. Try to multiply these two numbers, 34 times 72, and I'll give you a few minutes. Stop here for a moment and try to solve this multiplication mentally, using only your mind. Okay, now that you have hopefully found the solution and the solution is hopefully correct, I want you to do exactly the same thing. But get some pencil and paper and try to solve the same multiplication with pencil and paper with one of the standard methods that you probably learned in school, okay? So I'll give a few more minutes to do that. So you probably used the classical method that is learned at school, right? So when you have to multiply two numbers and these two numbers are not learned in your memory, right, you learned a series of intermediary operations that you can perform on paper so that it gets easier to multiply virtually any pair of numbers, right? What do you do? You multiply 2 times 4, and you write the number down. Then 2 times 3, and you write the number down. And then you start multiplying 7 times 4, 7 times 3, and then you sum the results, right? So now the important question here is why is it easier? I guess you noticed by performing this exercise that trying to do the multiplication mentally is much harder than doing it on paper, right? Unless you are a trained multiplicator, right, a person who is able to perform a lot of arithmetical operations with your brain, with your mind exclusively. So why is it easier? Well, there are a number of reasons why it is easier. But the most important one here is the fact that when you are performing the multiplication on paper, you are actually storing intermediary results on paper. And this way, you don't have to keep all the information in your mind as you're trying to solve this problem. That's a very important aspect. It shows you that in order to solve a problem, some elements that you should actually store in memory, you're storing them in the world. So that's a very powerful concept. Let me state this again. So in order to solve a problem, you are using some cognitive artifacts that are not in your mind. They are in the world, to record information so that you can access this information when it's needed, but you don't have to retain it in your mind all the time. That's an extremely powerful concept. And it's related to another concept that is called distributed cognition. What does distributed cognition mean? It means that our cognitive system is not exclusively made of our brain, our mind, and our sensors. It's also made of the artifacts and the environment that we have around us and we use to store and manipulate information. So this concept is extremely powerful and it's very important in visualization. Because visualization is a way for us to store information out of our mind and make it accessible through our eyes and also through manipulation with interactive systems.
