Comparing Distributed Cognition and Course of Action: An application to car driving

Distributed Cognition and Course of Action theories offer frameworks for micro-analysis of activity. The former leads to an abstract level of description of the propagation of information in a socio-technical system. The latter embeds conclusions from the Situated Action approach in the enaction theory to observe and analyze the Course of Experience. A compared analysis of the same moment of driving illustrates the discussion about similarities and differences between these approaches on topics such as the unit of analysis, the degree of stability assumed in the system, the contribution to design and the articulation of individuals, group and artifacts.