Intrapersonal Communication as Cognitive Collaboration

1. Intrapersonal Communication as Cognitive Collaboration Chapter 7 Shedletsky & Aitken

2. Intrapersonal Communication and Cognitive Collaboration • Intrapersonal Communication • Mental processes associated with meaning, a mental dialogue; • Assigning meaning to stimuli and producing meaningful stimuli, verbal or nonverbal; • Cognitive Collaboration • Jointly constructed ideas, dialogue with another about meaning;

3. Model of Intrapersonal Communication

4. The Intrapersonal Model • Think of the model as representing you; • Picture stimuli coming into your receptors (e.g., hearing, sight) from the Internet: • Picture the stimuli you send as expressed through your effectors (hands, speech) and mediated by the computer:

5. Information, Meaning, & Communication • Information as one level or type of meaning, akin to literal meaning; • Additional levels of meaning include social meaning, implied meaning, inferred meaning, and more; • Communication includes all levels of meaning;

6. The Computer as an Intensifier • Communication on the computer intensifies the intrapersonal aspects of communication; • It facilitates making us more aware of our mental processing of stimuli; • We need to put greater effort into thinking about what something means and hence we become more aware of our processing; • We begin to recognize that our inner world and our outer world are closely tied together;

7. Inner/Outer Speech • Inner speech is communication to yourself, internal; • Outer speech is communication with another, external; • Without face-to-face cues, you are required to work harder to think about the communication event; • You are driven further inside to inner speech; • Hence, email on the Internet is an intensified cognitive event, engaging the outside and the inside; • The communication model adopted here is highly interactive (slide 3); • In spite of an intrapersonal model, the event remains focused on social action; • Communication on the Internet is a mediated symbolic process;

8. Essential Features of Communication on the Internet • Mediation or negotiation between people which relies on cognitive representation of common ground; • Communication or reaching common understanding through interplay; • Cultural mediational artifacts or the cultural information that helps in interpretation; • Context or the situation, environment, situated meaning, with physical context reduced in Internet communication; • Mind or the cognitive processing of stimuli, which, again, is intensified in Internet communication;

9. The Self and the Internet • The computer as a source of identity; • Mediated-intrapersonal communication:Writing to the self; • The computer as the second self;

10. Role-Playing Identity • People engage in high levels of self disclosure on the Internet; • Knowing the identity of others is central to communication, yet on the Internet identity is ambiguous; • The relationship of the self (including the body), identity, and online interaction is complicated;

11. Age • We hear many warnings about the dangers of the Internet for children; • There are also benefits of the Internet for children: to access information, talk to people, play, and collaborate; • The Internet as a refuge;

12. Age • The Internet is an important tool for older adults; • It provides mental stimulation, connection to others, valuable information; • A way to feel apart of the times;

13. Gender • Though women have not been associated with technology, things are different with the Internet; • Some research suggests that women use email more than men and have less stereotypical attitudes toward the Internet than men; • Both women and men are using the Internet to communicate, though they may display different roles in online discussion;