The situativity of knowing, learning, and research.

The term intact activity systems is analogous to intact organisms.The components of an intact activity system include individual cognitive agents, just as the components of an intact organism include the parts of its nervous system.We argue that functional analyses of intact activity systems are needed to frame the questions of research about individual cognition and behavior, so the results of that research can explain how those mechanisms support individuals' contributions to the functioning of the systems in which they interact.This is analogous to the familiar arguments that functional analyses of the behavior of intact organisms are needed to frame the questions of research about neural processes.