Bruner, J.S. (1957). Going beyond the information given. In J.S. Bruner, E, Brunswik, L. Festinger, F. Heider, K.F. Muenzinger, C.E. Osgood, & D. Rapaport, (Eds.), Contemporary approaches to cognition (pp. 41-69). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Reprinted in Bruner, J.S. (1973). Beyond the information given (pp. 218-238). New York: Norton.]. [pages 218-222]

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Author of the summary: Jim R. Davies, 2000, jim@jimdavies.org

Cite this paper for:

• going beyond the information given
• Coding systems
• motivation affects abstraction generality. The middle is the best. [p227]
• Overtraining aids in generic code making.[p230]
• Creation of scientific theory is often combining two codes into a newer, more predictive one. [p235]

1. classification [p219]
2. learning the redundancy in the environment (filling in the blanks) [p220]
3. coding (making syllogisms, finding patterns in strings of numbers, etc.
4. Theory creation [p221]

"We propose that when one goes beyond the information given, one does so by virtue of being able to place the present given in a more generic coding system and that one essentially reads off from the coding system additional information either on the basis of learned contingent probabilities or learned principles of relating material." [p224] Three problems:

1. code acquisition: What kind of code do you need to learn such that it will allow you to understand new data?
2. creativity: How do you invent coding systems, and how do you know which ones to use? [p225]
3. instruction: how do you teach them?

code acquisition: What kind of code do you need to learn such that it will allow you to understand new data?

Under what conditions will the codes be learned? There are three roles:

1. Role of Set

   Reed (1946) showed that people are better at classification tasks if you tell them to look for patterns.

   How things are coded when learned affects the usefulness of the codes in other situations. [p227]

2. Need State

   Motivation affects code generality. Middle is the best. Too high or too low leads to concrete thinking.

3. mastery of the original learning

   Overtraining aids in generic code making.[p230]

4. Diversity of Training

   You need a variety of things to be able to find the right generalities.

creativity: How do you invent coding systems, and how do you know which ones to use?

Creation of scientific theory is often combining two codes into a newer, more predictive one. [p235]

instruction: how do you teach them?

General education is possible as a result of imparting "causally fertile" propositions of generic codes. [p337]

Summary author's notes:

• Perception seems to be to be a further kind of going beyond the information given. If one imagines 4 sticks in a certain way, that representation does not have the concept of square. But using perception, one can attribute the square to the image. This is also a sense of going beyond the information given.