A case to look through
A cook in a kitchen
How much of a cook's competence is in the cook?
Skilled activity depends partly on the fit between a capable person and a structured environment. Tools, ingredients, layout, preparation, and routines can make the same cook much more or less competent without changing what the cook knows.
Start with the puzzle
Put the same cook in a different kitchen.
An experienced cook working in a familiar kitchen can move quickly among tools, ingredients, heat sources, work surfaces, and stages of a recipe.
Put the same person in an unfamiliar kitchen where tools are hidden, ingredients are scattered, work surfaces are badly arranged, and equipment behaves differently. Much of the apparent fluency disappears.
The cook has not suddenly lost their knowledge. What changed was the relationship between that knowledge and the environment in which it had to become action.
Try looking at this case through
Ecological alignment
Competence emerges partly from the fit between the cook's capacities and the kitchen's organization.
How it happensEnvironmental scaffolding and niche construction
Tool placement, preparation, work surfaces, and routines structure what actions are easy to perform next.
LensPerceptual / relevance alignment
A familiar kitchen makes relevant objects, states, and possible actions easier to pick up.
LensDevelopmental alignment
Repeated work in an environment changes habits, expectations, perceptual skill, and the actions that can be performed fluently.
Now let the cook act
The cook changes the kitchen too.
Before cooking, ingredients may be measured and placed within reach. Tools are moved to useful locations. Finished and unfinished items are separated. The environment is reorganized around the task.
This is a small form of niche construction: competent action includes constructing an environment in which later competent action becomes easier.
Try breaking it
Keep the person fixed. Scramble the ecology.
Move every utensil, remove the labels, scatter the ingredients, and change which burners correspond to which controls.
If performance deteriorates, it would be strange to say that the cook's internal goals or values suddenly became misaligned. The relevant change occurred in the agent-environment relationship.
Look again