Jerome Bruner: biography of the driving force behind the cognitive revolution.

Life and work of a cognitive psychologist who took on the behaviorists.

Jerome Seymour Bruner (United States, 1915 - 2016) is one of the psychologists who most influenced the development of psychology in the 20th century, and for good reason. After receiving his doctorate at Harvard University in 1941, he conducted a series of papers and research on perception and learning that led him to confront behaviorists, such as B. F. Skinner, who understood this process as a product of the memorization of appropriate (or "useful") responses to certain stimuli.

When, during the 1950s, Bruner acted as the driving force behind the cognitive revolution that would end in the creation of the Center for Cognitive Studies In the wake of the Harvard School and the consolidation of cognitive psychology, the crisis of the behaviorist paradigm worsened and the cognitivist current began to take shape, which today is dominant in practically the whole world.

In addition to his contributions to cognitive psychology, Jerome Bruner has spent several decades teaching at both Harvard and Oxford, retiring from teaching in his 90s.

Jerome Bruner's Three Models of Learning

Like many other researchers engaged in cognitive psychology, Jerome Bruner devoted much time to studying the way we learn during our early years of life.. This led him to develop a theory of three basic ways of representing reality that are, in turn, three ways of learning based on our experiences. This is the enactive modelmodel, the iconic model and the symbolic model.

According to Bruner, these models or modes of learning are presented in a staggered manner, one after the other, following an order that goes from the most physical and related to the immediately accessible to the symbolic and abstract. It is a theory of learning very much inspired by the work of Jean Piaget and his proposals about the stages of cognitive development.

The similarities between Jerome Bruner's ideas and those of Piaget do not end there, since in both theories learning is understood as a process in which the consolidation of certain learning allows one to learn things that could not be understood before.

1. Enactive model

The enactive model proposed by Bruner is the mode of learning that appears first, since it is based on something we do from the beginning. it is based on something that we do from the first days of life: physical action, in the broadest meaning of the termin the broadest meaning of the term. In this model, interaction with the environment serves as the basis for enactive representation, i.e., the processing of information about what is close to us that comes to us through the senses.

Thus, in Jerome Bruner's enactive model, learning takes place through imitation, the manipulation of objects, dancing and acting, etc. This is a learning mode comparable to Piaget's sensorimotor stage. Once certain learning is consolidated through this mode, the iconic model appears..

Iconic model

The iconic mode of learning is based on the use of drawings and images in general that can serve to provide information about something beyond themselves. information about something beyond themselves. Examples of learning based on the iconic model are the memorization of countries and capitals by looking at a map, the memorization of different animal species by looking at photographs, or drawings or movies, etc.

For Jerome Bruner, the iconic mode of learning represents the transition from the concrete to the abstract. represents the transition from the concrete to the abstractand therefore presents characteristics that belong to these two dimensions.

Symbolic model

The symbolic model is based on the use of language, either spoken or written.. As language is the most complex symbolic system that exists, it is through this learning model that the contents and processes related to the abstract are accessed.

Although the symbolic model is the last one to appear, Jerome Bruner emphasizes that the other two continue to be produced when learning in this wayAlthough they have lost much of their prominence. For example, to learn the movement patterns of a dance we will have to resort to the enactive mode regardless of our age, and the same will happen if we want to memorize the parts of the human brain.

Learning according to Jerome Bruner

Beyond the existence of these modes of learning, Bruner has also held a particular view of learning in general. In contrast to the traditional conception of what learning is, which equates it with the almost literal memorization of content that is "stored" in the minds of students and learners, Jerome Bruner understands learning as a process in which the learner plays an active role..

Starting from a constructivist approach, Jerome Bruner understands that the source of learning is intrinsic motivation, curiosity and, in general, everything that generates interest in the learner.

Thus, for Jerome Bruner, learning is not so much the result of a series of actions as a continuous process based on the way in which the individual classifies the new information that comes to him to create a meaningful whole. Success in grouping chunks of knowledge and classifying them effectively will determine whether or not the learning is consolidated and serves as a springboard to other types of learning.

The role of teachers and tutors

Although Jerome Bruner pointed out that the learner has an active role in learning, he also placed a great deal of emphasis on the social context and the placed great emphasis on the social context and, specifically, on the role of those who supervise this learning..... Bruner, as did Vygotsky, maintains that learning does not take place individually but within a social context, which leads him to the conclusion that there is no learning without the help of others, be they teachers, parents, more experienced friends, etc.

The role of these facilitators is to act as guarantors of a guided discovery driven by the learner's curiosity.. In other words, they must bring into play all the means for the learner to develop his or her interests and gain practice and knowledge in return. This is the basic idea of scaffolding.

It is therefore not surprising that, like other educational psychologists such as John Dewey, Bruner proposed that schools should be places that provide an outlet for students' natural curiosity, offering them ways to learn through inquiry and the possibility of developing their interests through the participation of third parties who guide and act as referents.

The spiral curriculum

Jerome Bruner's research has led him to propose a spiral educational curriculum. spiral educational curriculumin which the contents are revised periodically so that each time the already learned contents are reconsolidated in the light of the new information that becomes available.

Bruner's spiral curriculum graphically captures what he means by learning: the constant reformulation of what has been internalized to make it richer and more nuanced as various experiences are lived.