Showing papers by "Jerome S. Bruner published in 1973"

Organization of early skilled action.

Abstract: BRUNER, JEROME S. Organization of Early Skilled Action. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1973, 44, 1-11. Early skill is dependent upon the initial arousal of an intention, specifying an end state, and containing minimal directions concerning means. Activated intention triggers constituent acts that are clumsily organized to achieve a desired end state, often with initial organization showing a preadapted pattern. Feedback shapes initially awkward patterns so that less attentional capacity is required. Further task analysis is made possible, and more evolved directed action is constructed of previously constructed sequences now organized into higherorder arts. The role of play and modeling in the organization of constituents for task completion is explored.

Learning through experience and learning through media

Abstract: This paper is concerned broadly with the consequences of two types of experience which may be designated as direct experience and mediated experience, their partial equivalence and substitutability, and their differing potential roles in the intellectual development and acculturation of children. Our analysis will begin with the problem of the nature of direct experience and its effect on development. A clearer conception of the processes involved in direct experience will permit us better to examine the manner and extent m which mediate experience may complement, elaborate and substitute for that direct experience. Much of a child's experience is formalized through schooling. Whether for reasons of economy or effectiveness, schools have settled upon learning out of context through media which are primarily symbolic. Schooling generally reflects the naive psychology which has been made explicit by Fritz Heider (Baldwin, 1967). 3 The general assumption of such a naive psychology is that the effects of experience can be considered as knowledge, that knowledge is conscious, and that knowledge can be translated into words. Symmetrically, words can be translated into knowledge, hence, one can learn, that is acquire knowledge, from being told. Because learning is cognitive, it is possible, according to naive theory, to substitute instruction for learning through experience. Thus, we can tell children what to do and how to do it, and instil wise and proper behaviour without the actual necessity of rewarding and punishing them. It is a common belief among naive educators, how-

The Coordination of Visual Observation and Instrumental Behavior in Early Infancy

Abstract: Infants aged 5–12 weeks were shown a silent colour film whose clarity/focus was contingent on their sucking on a dummy nipple. In the ‘suck-for-clear’ condition the mean rate of sucking increased significantly over baseline level, and decreased when the contingency shifted to ‘suck-for-blur’. When the initial condition was suck-for-blur, sucking rate remained close to baseline level (even after the shift to suck-for-clear). Time spent looking at the clear film increased in both conditions, but there was little change in looking at the blurred pictures. With the introduction of the contingency conditions patterns of looking at the clearing and cleared pictures changed, and looking at the cleared picture increased in the suck-for-clear but not the suck-for-blur condition. Asymmetry of the results indicates that infants are better able to use an active response for instrumental means than to inhibit a response to achieve instrumental control. Implications for the development of voluntary control of action ar...

Pacifier-produced visual buffering in human infants.

Abstract: Non-nutritive sucking in human infants aged 9–13 weeks produces buffering by reducing visual scanning movements in the presence of movement-invoking cinematic visual displays of both representational and abstract types. Scanning is correlated with movement in a display without the presence of sucking to buffer it.