Thinking While Doing: Active Cognition in Bartending

Everyday activities generally involve multiple kinds and scales of cognitive structures that are temporally integrated with the ongoing flow of actions. Some activities rest on specialized knowledge not widely shared among the general public. This chapter describes how reasonably skilled bartenders think through, and during, the process of taking orders and making drinks. As the example illustrates, bartenders’ active cognition involves several kinds of knowledge structures that are active at different times and in different ways in the production process, and bartenders and their customers do not need to think alike to interact successfully.