Lesson plan
Feedforward
Feedforward is a term coined by the literary critic I. A. Richards in 1951 at the 8th Macy conference on cybernetics. Feedforward relates to feedback, another cybernetic concept, but while feedback is a reaction to the output of a process, feedforward is the anticipation of what the output might be. Richards discussed this in terms of human communication, arguing that to be understood, a speaker has to feedforward the context of what they want to talk about, anticipating what the audience might not understand and adjusting what one plans to say to accommodate that. The term was taken up by cyberneticians, who had previously only used negative and positive feedback. It was also used by media theorist Marshall McLuhan, and has been taken up in management theory, control theory, neural networks and behavioral and cognitive science.
Article summary
Feedforward is a term coined by the literary critic I. A. Richards in 1951 at the 8th Macy conference on cybernetics. Feedforward relates to feedback, another cybernetic concept, but while feedback is a reaction to the output of a process, feedforward is the anticipation of what the output might be. Richards discussed this in terms of human communication, arguing that to be understood, a speaker has to feedforward the context of what they want to talk about, anticipating what the audience might not understand and adjusting what one plans to say to accommodate that. The term was taken up by cyberneticians, who had previously only used negative and positive feedback. It was also used by media theorist Marshall McLuhan, and has been taken up in management theory, control theory, neural networks and behavioral and cognitive science.
Key claims
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Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
Bibliography
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Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.