The role of input and output modality pairings in dual-task performance: evidence for content-dependent central interference

Recent debate regarding dual-task performance has focused on whether costs result from limitations in central capacity, and whether central operations can be performed in parallel. While these questions are controversial, the dominant models of dual-task performance share the assumption that central operations are generic--that is, their interactions are independent of stimulus and response modalities. To examine these issues, we conducted a series of dual-task experiments with different input and output modality pairings. One condition combined a visual-manual task with an auditory-vocal task, and the other condition reversed the input-output pairings, combining a visual-vocal task with an auditory-manual task. Input/output modality pairings proved to be a key factor; throughout practice, dual-task costs were generally more than twice as large with visual-vocal/auditory-manual tasks than with the opposite arrangement of modalities (Experiments 1 and 2). These differences could be explained neither by competition for peripheral resources nor by differences in single-task response times (Experiment 3). Moreover, the persistent dual-task costs did not appear to stem from a central bottleneck. Contrary to the dominant models of dual-task performance, we propose that central interference between tasks depends not just on the duration of central operations, nor just strategic adaptation, but also on the content of those operations. Implications for structural and strategic accounts of dual-task interference are discussed.     

HR practices as a mediator between organizational culture and transformational leadership: Implications for employee performance

Studies pertaining to human resource (HR) management in India have revealed a variety of factors that significantly affect employee performance not the least of which are organizational culture and leadership issues. The present study posits firm level HR practices as a mediator between organizational culture and transformational leadership whose outcomes are hypothesized as lower levels of individual employees’ intention to quit the organization and higher level of performance. For this purpose, data were collected from mangers/executives (N=357) and subjected to multivariate analysis. The results reveal that culture and leadership are significant predictors of intention to quit and employee performance. The results also show that HR practices are important mediators in transmitting the influence of the predictor variables to the criterion variables.     

制约国人白内障复明手术的社会因素

全球因白内障致失明者大约2000万人,导致低视力者3倍于此数字,即6000万。手术可使白内障失明者视力恢复正常或有用视力。每年每百万人口接受白内障手术的人数（白内障手术率）是在不同环境中衡量眼保健工作的有用尺度。白内障手术率在各国之间以及一个国家的不同地区都存在极大差异,最高者比利时16000例／百万,2004年统计我...     

Workplace creativity: Psychological,environmental, and organizational strategies

This study used an experimental approach to investigate the conditions under which creative outcomes should be expected from the interplay of individual creativity, the innovation orientation of the organizational culture, and the rewards distribution rules. The results of this study suggest that the individual creativity of technically educated people working in group settings constitutes a predominant factor in the creative performance of its members and in the overall group creative performance. Moreover, consistent with predictions derived from previous person-environment fit studies, the innovation orientation of the organizational culture enhanced the creative behavior of groups formed by more creative individuals, but it did not significantly increase the creative behavior of groups formed by low-creativity individuals. Finally, rewards distribution rules that generate intra-group competition seem not to directly improve or impair individual creative behavior or the final group creative outcome.     

NEW VISIONS FOR ENGAGED BUDDHISM: THE JUNGTO SOCIETY AND THE INDRA'S NET COMMUNITY MOVEMENT IN CONTEMPORARY KOREA

This paper examines two major Buddhist movements in contemporary South Korea, the Jungto Society and Indra's Net Community, which address issues in daily lives of lay people. Visionary monks began these movements: Jungto was established by P?mnyun in 1988, and Indra's Net by Tob?p in 1999. Both began as grassroots communities based on Buddhist principles, seeking an alternative way of thinking and living in response to contemporary society's emphasis on mass consumption, commercialism, competition, and the exploitation of the natural resources. While their activities overlap in promoting peace and ecological preservation, Jungto is better known for its humanitarian aid programmes in impoverished areas of the world, and the Indra's Net for its rural community movement in South Korea. With their steady and visible activities, these movements not only offer a new vision and work for lay Buddhists but also appeal to a wider population by involving the general public.     

哲学与现实生活

作为时代精神之精华的哲学必定懂得现实生活。哲学与现实生活的关系可以通过哲学与民众、哲学与社会实践、真理与价值、知识与信仰、理性与非理性、哲学家的使命感等问题展开出来。人民大众的实践活动,是哲学智慧的源泉。哲学是人类特有的智慧,其特色就在于它的批判性。对现存事物不合理、不公平因素的否定和批判,唤起人民的觉悟,是哲学的革命性、批判性锋芒的光辉体现。哲学不能故步自封,不应固守单纯知识的领地。应该突破哲学就是认识论的唯科学主义的眼界,向价值的领域、信仰的领域、非理性的领域挺进,开拓思想的自由。哲学家是哲学智慧的人格化,促进文化发展和人的全面发展是哲学家的光荣职责和使命。     

企业家行为民族特性理论构想

提出企业家民族特性理论和企业家行为人文社会精神理论并对其展开实证研究。突破了传统的企业家行为理论将企业家置于职业特性的研究范式和企业家行为特质只具有市场竞争精神的单维度结构。从回族商业文化特征研究入手, 构建企业家行为特质的二维结构模型, 开展回汉族企业家行为特质比较研究和回族企业家行为绩效评价研究。本项目可扩展企业家行为理论研究范畴, 推进学术界对我国少数民族商业文化及其企业家行为研究的关注, 丰富组织行为理论和民族理论等, 同时, 本研究对我国在转型期借鉴少数民族独具特色的商业文化成果重构中华民族商业文明, 促进企业家特别是少数民族企业家成长, 充分发挥企业家在经济建设和社会进步的作用, 推动少数民族经济繁荣以及少数民族特色产业企业绩效提高等方面, 也具有较高的应用潜质。     

组织情境中的影响策略研究述评

影响策略是指个体采取的旨在使他人态度和行为产生预期改变的行为方式。组织情境下的影响策略受动机、场控制和自我监控等因素的影响,对工作绩效、薪酬、晋升和一些积极组织行为有显著的预测作用。本文侧重介绍了影响策略的结构、测量、前因后果变量以及跨文化研究等方面内容,总结了已有研究为管理实践提供的有价值参考,并指出研究方法的有效互补、对基层职员影响策略的关注和基于中国人行为观念的本土化研究是今后探讨的主要方向。     

Synergies between processing and memory in children’s reading span

Previous research has established the relevance of working memory for cognitive development. Yet the factors responsible for shaping performance in the complex span tasks used to assess working memory capacity are not fully understood. We report a study of reading span in 7‐ to 11‐year‐old children that addresses several contemporary theoretical issues. We demonstrate that both the timing and the accuracy of recall are affected by the presence or absence of a semantic connection between the processing requirement and the memoranda. Evidence that there can be synergies between processing and memory argues against the view that complex span simply measures the competition between these activities. We also demonstrate a consistent relationship between the rate of completing processing operations (sentence reading) and recall accuracy. At the same time, the shape and strength of this function varies with the task configuration. Taken together, these results demonstrate the potential for reconstructive influences to shape working memory performance among children.     

The Changing Context of Assessment and its Implications

Increased competition and the globalization of business have resulted in fundamental changes in the structure of organizations. These in turn have altered the nature of the employment relationship and reduced the extent of internal labour markets. The implications for traditional models of assessment are profound. Job analysis, the management of careers, homogeneity of the workforce, and the ownership of assessment data are all problematic. New tools are not adequate to address these issues. Rather, the profession of work and organizational psychology needs to change the assumptions and values of its culture as well as its artefacts. The major block to such change is the selection of those problems which are defined by the academic establishment rather than those faced by the client.     

Rivals without a cause? Relative performance feedback creates destructive competition despite aligned incentives

Whether people compete or cooperate with each other has consequences for their own performance and that of organizations. To explain why people compete or cooperate, previous research has focused on two main factors: situational outcome structures and personality types. Here, we propose that—above and beyond these two factors—situational cues, such as the format in which people receive feedback, strongly affect whether they act competitively, cooperatively, or individualistically. Results of a laboratory experiment support our theorizing: After receiving ranking feedback, both students and experienced managers treated group situations with cooperative outcome structures as competitive and were in consequence willing to forgo guaranteed financial gains to pursue a—financially irrelevant—better rank. Conversely, in dilemma situations, feedback based on the joint group outcome led to more cooperation than ranking feedback. Our study contributes to research on competition, cooperation, interdependence theory, forced ranking, and the design of information environments.     

Spatial updating of multiple targets: Comparison of younger and older adults

When walking without vision, people mentally keep track of the directions and distances of previously viewed objects, a process called spatial updating. The current experiment indicates that while people across a large age range are able to update multiple targets in memory without perceptual support, aging negatively affects accuracy, precision, and decision time. Participants (20 to 80 years of age) viewed one, three, or six targets (colored lights) on the floor of a dimly lit room. Then, without vision, they walked to a target designated by color, either directly or indirectly (via a forward turning point). The younger adults’ final stopping points were both accurate (near target) and precise (narrowly dispersed), but updating performance did degrade slightly with the number of targets. Older adults’ performance was consistently worse than the younger group, but the lack of interaction between age and memory load indicates that the effect of age on performance was not further exacerbated by a greater number of targets. The number of targets also significantly increased the latency required to turn toward the designated target for both age groups. Taken together, results extend previous work showing impressive updating performance by younger adults, with novel findings showing that older adults manifest small but consistent degradation of updating performance of multitarget arrays.     

Entrepreneurship research and practice: a call to action for psychology

Entrepreneurship is a major source of employment, economic growth, and innovation, promoting product and service quality, competition, and economic flexibility. It is also a mechanism by which many people enter the society's economic and social mainstream, aiding culture formation, population integration, and social mobility. This article aims to illuminate research opportunities for psychologists by exposing gaps in the entrepreneurship literature and describing how these gaps can be filled. A "call to action" is issued to psychologists to develop theory and undertake empirical research focusing on five key topic areas: the personality characteristics of entrepreneurs, the psychopathology of entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial cognition, entrepreneurship education, and international entrepreneurship. Methodological issues are discussed and recommendations provided. It is shown that psychologists can help identify the factors that influence new venture creation and success and inform the construction of public policy to facilitate entrepreneurship.     

Psychometric validation of an Organisational Performance Questionnaire (OPQ) based on the Burke-Litwin model

This study reports the findings on the development and validation of an Organisational Performance Questionnaire (OPQ) based on the Burke-Litwin model. Respondents were 398 employees from various public and private sector organisations in South Africa, consisting of different genders (male = 60.8%, female = 39.2%), different functional groupings (mostly operations, finance, human relations = 37.25%) and mostly middle or senior level managers (62.4%). Data were analysed utilising exploratory factor analysis with promax rotation. Results indicated the OPQ to measure all twelve of the Burke-Litwin elements contained in their model: external environment, mission and strategy, leadership, culture, structure, management practices, systems, work group climate, skills/job match, individual needs and values, motivation, and organisational and individual performance. An OPQ based on the Burke-Litwin model appears valid for assessing organisational performance in the South African setting.     

The cultural mind: environmental decision making and cultural modeling within and across populations

This article describes cross-cultural research on the relation between how people conceptualize nature and how they act in it. Mental models of nature differ dramatically among populations living in the same area and engaged in similar activities. This has novel implications for environmental decision making and management, including common problems. The research offers a distinct perspective on cultural modeling and a unified approach to studies of culture and cognition. The authors argue that cultural transmission and formation consist primarily not in shared rules or norms but in complex distributions of causally connected representations across minds interacting with the environment. The cultural stability and diversity of these representations often derive from rich, biologically prepared mental mechanisms that limit variation to readily transmissible psychological forms. This framework addresses several methodological issues, such as limitations on conceiving culture to be a well-defined system, bounded entity, independent variable, or an internalized component of minds.     

Resisting the temptation to compete: Self-control promotes cooperation in mixed-motive interactions

This article provides a self-control analysis of mixed-motive interactions, including 2-person social dilemmas and bargaining encounters. We propose that mixed-motive interactions pose a self-control conflict between pursuing immediate benefits through competition and pursuing long-term benefits through cooperation. As such, anticipating high (vs. low) barriers to successful outcomes triggers counteractive self-control operations that increase cooperation, so long as people believe that by doing so they can influence others to reciprocate.     

Empowering people with physical disabilities through advocacy skills training

Members of an advocacy organization for people with physical disabilities were trained to identify and report issues at group meetings. In addition, two consecutive chairpersons were trained to conduct action-oriented meetings. Measures of group members' activities outside meetings and related outcomes on identified issues were also collected. Results indicated increases in the number of disability-related issues reported by trained members and consistent improvements in chairperson performance following training. Retrospective interviews and permanent records showed that advocacy activities, as well as the outcomes of members' actions, increased after training. These findings and their implications for the empowerment of people with disabilities are discussed.     

Visual and tactile cross-modal mere exposure effects

The affective system enables people to perceive and judge the emotional content of stimuli from various sensory modalities. Cross-modal interactions in affective processes, however, are less well understood. Using novel three-dimensional objects, we investigated cross-modal mere exposure effects between vision and touch. Previewing objects increased the preference judged by hand, while pre-touching did not modulate the preference judged by vision. Moreover, these effects were found to be independent of recognition performance, suggesting a dissociation between affective and cognitive processing. Our demonstration of a cross-modal mere exposure effect suggests that the affective system integrates inputs from visual and tactile modalities asymmetrically.     

Performance of the vertical position in synchronized swimming as a function of skill, proprioceptive and visual feedback

This experiment assessed the efficacy of proprioceptive and visual information for the performance of "vertical position" by synchronized swimmers. Three skill groups of 5 senior, 5 intermediate, and 5 novice synchronized swimmers performed 40 vertical positions under four conditions. The conditions were: self-initiated with and without vision, and following experimenter perturbation, with and without vision. The dependent measure was degrees of error from true vertical. Analysis indicated that either proprioception or proprioception and vision may be used in performing vertical positions. A significant main effect was found among skill groups.     

The role of color in high-level vision

Traditional theories of object recognition have emphasized the role of shape information in high-level vision. However, the accumulating behavioral, neuroimaging and neuropsychological evidence indicates that the surface color of an object affects its recognition. In this article, we discuss the research that examines the conditions under which color influences the operations of high-level vision and the neural substrates that might mediate these operations. The relationship between object color and object recognition is summarized in the 'Shape+Surface' model of high-level vision.