The Cybernetics of Human Learning and Performance by Gordon Pask (review)

Books 83 and terminology, so, to smooth the initiation of his discussion , Johnson makes reference to compositional precedents in painting. Beginning with those qualities unique to film, he moves on to a discussion of filmic space and the articulation of that space in filmic time. To help illuminate these discussions the text is copiously illustrated with nearly 800 plates, some in color. More than is true for many books on film, impressions described in this book are accessible to readers who have not necessarily seen the works under discussion. Thus, the book is an ideal introductory text. In addition to a lavish use of sequencesof stills, the reader’s empathy is heightened mainly because discussion centres on effects of formal arrangements of the plastic elements of film and not on the ineffable qualities unique to moments of art. Understanding the constituent parts of a work yield more insight than adulation. After treating the basic elements of film, Johnson leads the reader to an appreciation of the complexitiesof contrapuntal and multiplexfilmicorganization. As early movies tend to be simpler in their grammars, examples tend to be cited in chronological order-paralleling the technical development of film. But in no senseis this a history. The central parts of the book discuss continuity, contrast, color, sound and the problems of arranging narrative flow in a medium that seems to lack the apparent tense inflections of speech. During this discussion, he presents a balanced critique of editing stylesversusplasticmeansas thecompelling organizational force in filmic development. Eisenstein and montage theory are prominent, carefully explained and lovingly illustrated, notably with frame sequencesof the ‘Odessa Steps’episode from ‘Potemkim’. Johnson engagesin a skillful and extensiveexamination of color in Antonioni’s ‘Red Desert’, richly illustrated with color stills. For him this work is a pinnacle of color organization, ’. . . a film that exploits tonal functions to their fullest potential and orchestrates them with a mastery that is breathtaking’ (p. 153). The book concludes with sections on the modes and genres of film, the roles of different contributions made by the various cinematic crafts at each stage of a film’s development and with a brief discussion of censorship, that modification of a film after it has left the hands and control of its makers. A filmography of the cited works, a bibliography and a glossary round out this useful work. The Cybernetics of Human Learning and Performance. Gordon Pask. Hutchinson, London, 1975. 347 pp., illus. f7.75. Reviewedby Michael J. Apter* Prolific, original and controversial, Pask is one of the undoubted leaders of the second generation of cyberneticians. In his research he has dealt with a variety of topics, including chemical computers, self-organizing systems, cybernetic art (as in his ‘Colloquy of Mobiles’ in the ‘Cybernetic Serendipity ’ Exhibition, London, 1968), the interaction between humans and other humans or machines, and adaptive teaching machines. Varied as these topics apparently are, they, in fact, become closely related in the way that Pask handles them. Probably his best known work is in the area of adaptive teaching machines, which he pioneered. This latter work figures centrally in the present book (his third) which takes as its main theme the research carried out in his own laboratory in relation to human learning. In the opening chapters Pask gives the general theoretical context for his work on teaching machines by discussingthe notions of information, machines, and evolution and reproduction in cybernetic terms. He also discussescertain methodological problems in science. The focus then moves to the description of models of the learning process developed by him and others and this leads in turnto an account of adaptive teaching machines and of empirical work using them to ~ Wept. of Psychology, University College, P.O. Box 96, Cardi!TCFl lXB, W a l e s . teach skills. In the following chapters consideration is given more to intellectual and symbolic, i.e. ‘academic’, teaching and the special problems that are involved here, including the question of how processes should be specified in symbolic terms. This all leads finally to an adumbration of a new general cybernetic hypothesis of communication and learning , which links many of the ideas discussed earlier in the book and throws new light on the problems raised...