Generality and behavioral correlates of cognitive styles.

Factorial confirmation of 2 cognitive styles, defined as relationships between abilities within individuals, was sought in the within-individual variations of task performances. The cognitive styles, 1 termed "Conceptual versus Perceptual-motor Dominance," the other, "Strong versus Weak Automatization," were factorially isolated in each of 2 samples of adult normal males, and in 1 sample of adolescent male and female twins. The results are similar to those obtained by British factor analysts using hierarchical group factor method. Examination of the relationships of the factors to education and occupational levels in the adult normals revealed that the Strong Automatizers had higher occupational levels than the Weak Automatizers although the 2 groups of Ss did not differ in general intelligence or education. (35 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Doubling the rate of signal presentation in a vigilance task during sleep deprivation.

An experiment was conducted to test the effect of doubling the amount of work required of Ss after loss of sleep. Ss were required to detect defined sequences of 3 digits ("signals") within an apparently random series. Digits were presented continuously for 30 min. either at 1 per sec. (slow) or 2 per sec. (fast). The slow condition contained 20 signals; the fast condition 40. Slow and fast groups were tested on 3 successive days of a 60-hr. vigil and 2 similar groups under control conditions. The results showed that loss of sleep affects performance under fast less than under slow. These and other results suggested that stimulation reduces the effect of sleepiness on performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Optimal Use of Simulation: Erratum.

Reports an error in the original article by Joseph Weitz and Seymour Adler (Journal of Applied Psychology. Vol. 58(2) Oct 1973, 219-224). A sentence on page 223 was incorrectly set. The corrected sentence is provided. (The following abstract of this article originally appeared in record 1974-12088-001.) Investigated the problem of when to stop training on a simulator and the disadvantages of simulator fidelity. 50 male and 50 female undergraduates were either overtrained, not overtrained, or not trained at all (controls) in a collating task with 3 or 5 racks. Results were not significant, but the hypothesized outcomes were in the predicted direction: (a) for males, overtraining on collating either 3 or 5 racks led to slightly poorer performance on the real task (collating 8 racks) than for the comparable groups with no overtraining; and (b) for females, overtraining on both the 3- and 5-rack tasks improved real task performance over the control condition, but only in the overtrained condition. A paradigm for further investigations is suggested. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Correction to Lovallo and Pishkin.

Reports an error in the original article by William R. Lovallo and Vladimir Pishkin (Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 1980[Jun], Vol 38[6], pp. 963-971). Lovallo and Pishkin's article carried the APA copyright notice. However, the article was prepared as part of the authors' official duties with the federal government, and therefore the copyright notice should not have appeared. (The following abstract of this article originally appeared in record 1981-12817-001.) 42 medical students, ages 20-35 yrs, were classified in either Type A or Type B groups to test D. C. Glass's (1977) assertions (a) that Type A Ss would initially react to uncontrollable noise with increased coping efforts, as indexed by improved task performance on pretreatment tasks, and (b) that following exposure they would react with decreased coping, as measured by poor performance on a final task. Type B's were predicted to perform consistently throughout. Instead, Type B's showed initial coping attempts during exposure to uncontrollability and showed decreased coping following exposure, whereas A's performed consistently throughout. It is concluded that Type A and B persons do react differently to a threat to their control of a situation, but that this experimental paradigm may lack the precision necessary to elucidate the psychological factors motivating the behavior of the coronary-prone individual. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Group performance as function of task difficulty and the group's awareness of member satisfaction.

Investigated the hypothesis that group effectiveness increases with increased member awareness of group satisfaction, and that this effect is greater for difficult than for easy tasks. 5-person groups attempted 3 tasks differing in difficulty, under 3 conditions of satisfaction feedback: no feedback, overt feedback, and covert feedback. In the overt condition, Ss publicly indicated their satisfaction with the problem-solving process, whereas in the covert condition their satisfaction was indicated anonymously. The results supported the hypothesis. It was suggested that valid communication of satisfaction leads to more complete use of members' contributions, and hence improves performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Selecting competent raters.

Navigator students (N = 109) estimated qualifications needed to perform Air Force tasks using an experimentally standardized list and sets of 5 rating scales. Rerating a month later, they were scored by correlating their ratings with a key of pooled estimates. Key agreement significantly predicted key agreement, suggesting a technique for selecting task analysts and job evaluators. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Division of labor and performance under cooperative and competitive conditions.

The degree to which group members had similar preference orderings among task functions and the degree to which they could observe each other's performance were hypothesized to interact with competitive and cooperative group relationships in determining the extent to which they divided their labor and the level of the group performance. 15 cooperative and 15 competitive dyadic groups worked on jigsaw puzzles under 3 different task conditions: Low Observability-Low Similarity of Preference, High Observability-Low Similarity of Preference, and High Observability-High Similarity of Preference. The division of labor and performance scores of cooperative and competitive groups were similar when the Observability of other's performance and the Similarity of Preference among task functions was low. The relative superiority in division of labor and performance of cooperative groups as compared with competitive groups increased as both Observability and Similarity of Preference increased. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Theory and experiment on the measurement of approach-avoidance conflict.

To investigate the effect of approach-avoidance conflict upon GSR and the content and reaction time in a word association task, parachutists were tested on the day of a scheduled jump and either 2 weeks before or after the jump. Gradients of anxiety were higher on the day of the jump for all Ss, as measured by the dependent variables, as compared to the pre- and postjump periods. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Group performance in a cognitive task.

On a cross-word puzzle task performed by 60 pairs of male Ss, correlations between group performance and performance of the individuals (independently determined) were calculated. 82% of the true group performance variance on the task could be predicted from the individual performance scores. "It is suggested that the nature of the task is important in studies of group performance, and that the existence of 'group' phenomena should be empirically demonstrated rather than assumed." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of anxiety and threat on the solution of a difficult task.

"Two variables were manipulated in this research, anxiety and experimental instructions administered prior to the subjects' performance on a series of anagrams high in difficulty level. Three measures of anxiety were used: the Test Anxiety Scale (TAS) [Sarason, 1958], the Lack of Protection Scale (LP) [Sarason, 1958], and Bendig's version of the Manifest Anxiety Scale (MAS) [Bendig, 1956]. The two sets of instructions differed in that one set was designed to pose a personal threat to the subject and the other set was designed to reassure the subject. The results showed that TAS and LP, but not MAS, significantly interacted with the instructions." From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:3HK65S. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)