Implications of the embodied, enactive mind on theorizing about information experience

Abstract

Information Experience is a recent and growing concept in Information Science that is proposed as a holistic approach to explicitly examine the human experience of information interactions, including an individual's perceptual, cognitive and embodied experience. Valuable to this discussion is setting out a suitable philosophical position about the conception of the mind. This paper proposes that the concepts of embodied cognition and the non‐representational, enactive mind are necessary conceptions of mind for an adequate theoretical account of Information Experience. Furthering this discussion, the concept of information as an enactive cognitive phenomenon is explored, as constructed by the individual, embodied by their experience and contextually situated. These conceptions will provide a foundation for further development of the emerging field of information experience, and prove thought provoking for the Information Science field generally in the development of new approaches to the ways we use and share information in our communities and the future technologies we build for this.

Holistic information research: From rhetoric to paradigm

“…A further example is the division of elements of human experience. Hoyte analyses the ascendant concept of “information experience,” arguing that the concept is holistic because it unites “perceptual, cognitive, and embodied experience” (Hoyte, 2019, p. 413).…”

Pets and people: information experience of multispecies families

“…A recent idea in the field using a phenomenological orientation is “information experience”. Information experience is an increasingly common concept proposed as a holistic approach to explicitly examine the human experience of information interactions, including an individual's perceptual, cognitive and embodied experience (Hoyte, 2019). The first milestone in information experience research was the publication of Information Experience: approaches to theory and practice by Christine Bruce and her team (Bruce et al , 2014) which widened the field of information behaviour by establishing information experience as both a research object and a new domain of study.…”

“…From the informational support that happens in a dog park, to the amazing flexibility of human/dog communication using an innovative soundboard, there are many intellectual, emotional and embodied facets to the interactions between humans, pets and information across multispecies families. The information experience perspective helps us explore information as construed by the individual [both human and animal], embodied by their experience and contextually situated in their practices (Hoyte, 2019). In this paper, we have identified and elaborated on many common situations experienced by multispecies families, as well as the information forms and activities taking place within them.…”