Central role of g in military pilot selection

The role of general cognitive ability (g) in the selection of military pilots is discussed. Four seminal issues that threaten the interpretation of the results of ability studies are introduced and examined. A brief history of the use of g in pilot selection is presented, going back to the World War I era. At that time, many countries used tests such as perception and reaction time, later shown to be mostly measures of g. The World War II era brought the age of the multiple aptitude batteries, and with it, the theory of differential abilities. However, most militaries still used highly g-saturated measures. More recently, an awareness of the prominence of g in job performance has led to a series of studies that showed the central role of g in predicting pilot success. In comparative analyses, g was found to be a better predictor of pilot criteria than specific abilities. However, some specific abilities or measures of job knowledge were found to increment the predictiveness of g. Several selection variables that appeared to measure characteristics other than g were found to measure, at least in some part, g. These include psychomotor tests and structured interviews. Finally, speculation on the future of the measurement of g is presented.     

Subject Matter Expert Judgments Regarding the Relative Importance of Competencies are not Useful for Choosing the Test Batteries that Best Predict Performance

Several recent articles have suggested that assessments of the relative importance of different abilities or competencies to a job have little bearing on the criterion‐related validity of these selection tests that measure those abilities. We hypothesize that selection test batteries chosen to maximize the judged importance of knowledge, skills, and abilities will not predict performance better than batteries of tests chosen at random. The results in two independent samples consistently show that the validity of test batteries chosen based on subject matter expert judgments of importance is not different from the validity of batteries of a comparable number of tests chosen at random from a set of intercorrelated tests, or even those chosen to provide the worst possible match between test content and job content.     

Evaluating Military Selection and Classification Systems in the Multiple Job Context

This article contrasts 2 research paradigms used in designing and evaluating test batteries and predictor composites for selection and classification in the multiple job context. Selection and classification test batteries such as the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery are designed and evaluated primarily in terms of incremental predictive validity. An alternative research paradigm offered by differential assignment theory (DAT) uses a standardized mean predicted performance measure as the index of efficiency. A review of the DAT research paradigm and studies applying it to U.S. Army test and performance data forms the focus for a comparison between the findings of predictive validity and DAT research. We suggest that the DAT research paradigm is a more appropriate vehicle for evaluating test batteries and predictor composites used for assignment in the military context.     

Large sample validations of three general predictors of pilot training success

This article addresses one of the perennial problems of pilot selection research: obtaining an adequate sample size for reliable statistical analysis of predictive validity. Results from three studies involving the same computerized tests of instrument comprehension and psychomotor ability were combined in a meta-analysis to determine whether the validities of these tests generalized across three contexts. These were Royal Air Force and Turkish Air Force fixed-wing pilot training and British Army Air Corps rotary-wing pilot training. In this article, we discuss the adequacy of samples for estimating the validity of the tests, and the persistence of predictive validity to later stages of training as shown by British Army Air Corps data. Reference is also made to data from a fourth independent study of Qantas pilot training.     

Automatic vigilance for task-related information: Perseverance after failure and inhibition after success

In three experiments, the influence of failure and success on persistent automatic vigilance task-related information was investigated. Participants first had to work on a series of synonym selection problems for which negative and positive feedback was given independently of their performance. In the second part of the experiments, words from the synonym selection problems were presented as distractors in a dual task with speeded responses. Interference effects of the distractors served as a measure of automatic vigilance for the previous synonym selection problems that was unbiased by strategic processes. Interference effects were stronger for words from failure tasks than for words from success tasks. Comparing the success and failure conditions against a neutral baseline suggested that this difference was due to both a perseverance of automatic vigilance for failure tasks and an inhibition of cognitive accessibility after success.     

Detection of Cognitive Structure with Protocol Data: Predicting Performance on Physics Transfer Problems

This article presents a cognitive map proposed to be associated with understanding of the “system concept,” one component of the physics principle of Newton's second low. A definition of the concept is followed by the results of a problem-solving experiment designed to investigate whether or not good problem solvers possess cognitive structures similar to the one proposed. Think-aloud protocols were collected as subjects solved a series of physics problems involving Newton's second law. Coding schemes were used to analyze these protocols and to develop a quantitative index intended to reflect the extent to which subjects possessed certain components of the proposed structure. This index proved a highly significant predictor of performance on Newton's second law transfer problems contained in a written exam. In contrast, performance on a set of familiar problems in the same written exam was not a good predictor of performance on transfer problems. These results indicate that cognitive structures that connect the equation ΣF = ma and the concept of choosing appropriate systems are at least part of what constitutes understanding of the principle of Newton's second law. Implications for physics education and problem-solving research are presented.     

Standardized and flexible batteries in neuropsychology: An assessment update

This article summarizes current literature relevant to commonly used tests and test batteries in clinical neuropsychology. The first section contains a discussion of the philosophy and relative advantages of standardized and flexible battery approaches in neuropsychology. The second contains historical background and a literature review of the two major standardized test batteries: the Halstead-Reitan and Luria-Nebraska. The third section includes reviews of tests that are frequently used in the flexible battery approach. Various tests of intellectual functioning, attention, memory, language, and spatial analyses are critiqued in this section. Contributions of the process approach are noted. The article ends by underscoring the need for continued research into the nature of neuropsychological measures and the abilities they assess.     

Multiple test batteries as predictors for pilot performance: A meta‐analytic investigation

Test Batteries (TBs) have a long history of use in pilot selection. The extent to which TBs predict future pilot performance has important implications. The existing pilot‐related psychometric meta‐analyses have focused primarily on scores of individual ability tests, rather than the combined scores composited from multiple ability tests. The objective of this study was to investigate the predictive validity of TBs' composite scores for several criteria of pilot performance. Informed by the Cattell–Horn–Carroll theory, we proposed a classification scheme of six categories representing the most common composite scores in selection assessment: Acquired Knowledge, Perceptual Processing, Motor Abilities, Controlled Attention, General Ability, and Work Sample. For overall pilot performance, based on 267 correlations from 118 independent samples, results showed that the six categories of TBs are valid predictors (Mean_r = .10–.34), and at least five of them have validity that is likely to generalize across selection contexts.     

Implicit learning: Robustness in the face of psychiatric disorders

The performance of a group of psychiatric inpatients on two different cognitive tasks was compared with that of a control group of college undergraduates. The task in the first experiment was implicit learning of a complex, synthetic grammar; the task in the second experiment was explicit learning of relatively simple letter-to-number matching rules. In the first experiment, differences between the normals and the psychiatrically impaired were found on the preliminary memorization task but not on the implicit grammar learning task; in the second experiment, differences were observed on all phases of the experiment, with the inpatients performing no better than chance. These findings provide support for the hypothesis that, under appropriate conditions, individuals suffering from serious disorders may show no deficits when working with complex and abstract stimulus domains while showing serious performance problems when working with relatively simple, concrete stimuli. The key factor is that the former were presented as tasks that tap nonreflective, implicit processes, whereas the latter were put forward as ones that recruit conscious, explicit processes.The experiments are based in part on studies reported in Abrams (1987). Preparation of this article was supported in part by a grant from the City University of New York PSC-CUNY Research Award Program, Brooklyn College of CUNY.     

GENECES: A framework for intellectual abilities and theories of them

It is proposed that the centrality of intellectual abilities can be assessed in terms of two criteria: (a) the generality of the ability in performances on tasks requiring adaptation to, selection of, and shaping of, real-world environments, and (b) the necessity of these abilities in performing these tasks. The two criteria taken together are given the acronym GENECES (Generality and NECESsity). The article opens with a discussion of the problems of arbitrariness of criteria for deciding on tests to measure central intellectual abilities—first for a posteriori bases of criteria selection, and second for a priori criteria. The article then discusses why the GENECES framework may be useful in selecting tasks and in evaluating the centrality of abilities to intelligence.     

Navigating Bioethical Waters: Two Pilot Projects in Problem-Based Learning for Future Bioscience and Biotechnology Professionals

We believe that the professional responsibility of bioscience and biotechnology professionals includes a social responsibility to contribute to the resolution of ethically fraught policy problems generated by their work. It follows that educators have a professional responsibility to prepare future professionals to discharge this responsibility. This essay discusses two pilot projects in ethics pedagogy focused on particularly challenging policy problems, which we call “fractious problems”. The projects aimed to advance future professionals’ acquisition of “fractious problem navigational” skills, a set of skills designed to enable broad and deep understanding of fractious problems and the design of good policy resolutions for them. A secondary objective was to enhance future professionals’ motivation to apply these skills to help their communities resolve these problems. The projects employed “problem based learning” courses to advance these learning objectives. A new assessment instrument, “Skills for Science/Engineering Ethics Test” (SkillSET), was designed and administered to measure the success of the courses in doing so. This essay first discusses the rationale for the pilot projects, and then describes the design of the pilot courses and presents the results of our assessment using SkillSET in the first pilot project and the revised SkillSET 2.0 in the second pilot project. The essay concludes with discussion of observations and results.     

Pragmatic Schemas and the Selection Task: To Reason or Not to Reason

Cheng and Holyoak (1985) have proposed that people possess classes of linguistically based schemas that have an internal structure that is determined by pragmatic considerations. They found that when permission schemas (“If you want to do P, then you must do Q”) are used in the selection task, the success rate is much superior to what is usually observed. According to Cheng and Holyoak, this is due to the fact that the permission schema is defined by a set of production rules that give the same answers to problems of conditional inference as those of formal logic. In order to test this hypothesis specifically, 160 university students were given one of two tests. The first contained two sets of inferential reasoning tasks, one using a permission schema, the second using a relation of multiple causality. The second test employed the same two conditional relations, but in an appropriate context. The results indicated that subjects did better on the reasoning task with the schema of multiple causality when presented in context, but, as predicted, their performance was much worse on the inferential reasoning task with the permission schema, which generated a higher proportion of logically incorrect responses. These results suggest that contrary to what has been affirmed, permission schemas might not have a logical structure that is equivalent to conditional logic. A second experiment examined selection task performance using the same two relations in context. Performance on the permission schema was superior to that found with the relation of multiple causality. This confirmed previous results indicating that permission schemas do improve selection task performance, but also suggests that this effect is not related to understanding of conditional reasoning.     

Relationship of arithmetic problem solving and reflective-impulsive cognitive styles in third-grade students

Different individuals approach mathematical problems in a variety of ways, with these different approaches also reflected in over-all cognitive styles. This investigation had two purposes, first, to determine whether good and poor arithmetic problem solvers differ substantially in cognitive style, and second, to determine whether the students, after training in techniques of solving arithmetic problems, improve their performance with no significant change in cognitive style. A total of 98 third graders participated (mean age 8.1 yr.; 50 boys, 48 girls). The Matching Familiar Figure Test was used to classify the students by cognitive style as either Reflective or Impulsive. Students also were given training with different problem-solving exercises for different arithmetic problems. The training program in problem-solving strategies did not improve performance on arithmetic problems for Reflective students; however, Impulsive students' performance did improve after training.     

Some open problems in the philosophy of space and time

This article is concerned to formulate some open problems in the philosophy of space and time that require methods characteristic of mathematical traditions in the foundations of geometry for their solution. In formulating the problems an effort has been made to fuse the separate traditions of the foundations of physics on the one hand and the foundations of geometry on the other. The first part of the paper deals with two classical problems in the geometry of space, that of giving operationalism an exact foundation in the case of the measurement of spatial relations, and that of providing an adequate theory of approximation and error in a geometrical setting. The second part is concerned with physical space and space-time and deals mainly with topics concerning the axiomatic theory of bodies, the operational foundations of special relativity and the conceptual foundations of elementary physics.     

Worms under cover: relationships between performance in learning tasks and personality in great tits (Parus major)

In animals, individual differences in learning ability are common and are in part explained by genetic differences, developmental conditions and by general experience. Yet, not all variations in learning are well understood. Individual differences in learning may be associated with elementary individual characteristics that are consistent across situations and over time, commonly referred to as personality or temperament. Here, we tested whether or not male great tits (Parus major) from two selection lines for fast or slow exploratory behaviour, an operational measure for avian personality, vary in their learning performance in two related consecutive tasks. In the first task, birds had to associate a colour with a reward whereas in the second task, they had to associate a new colour with a reward ignoring the previously rewarded colour. Slow explorers had shorter latencies to approach the experimental device compared with fast explorers in both tasks, but birds from the two selection lines did not differ in accomplishing the first task, that is, to associate a colour with a reward. However, in the second task, fast explorers had longer latencies to solve the trials than slow explorers. Moreover, relative to the number of trials needed to reach the learning criteria in the first task, birds from the slow selection line took more trials to associate a new colour with a reward while ignoring the previously learned association compared with birds from the fast selection line. Overall, the experiments suggest that personality in great tits is not strongly related to learning per se in such an association task, but that birds from different selection lines might express different learning strategies as birds from the different selection lines were differently affected by their previous learning performance.     

The Concept of Personal Initiative: An Overview of Validity Studies

Construct validity of an interview measure of personal initiative (PI) is examined in two parts. The first part assembles the results from 11 samples, showing that PI is meaningfully related to a nomological network of variables, based on environmental supports; knowledge, skills, and cognitive abilities; personality variables and orientations; and behavior and performance, confirming our hypotheses. In the second part, the article presents a new analysis that looks at the influence of motivational parameters (control aspiration, self-efficacy, and change orientation) and cognitive ability on PI within a longitudinal study in East Germany.     

Historically Uninformed Views of Historically Informed Performance

This article argues that contemporary analytic philosophy of music has characterized historically informed performance practice as compliance focused, impersonal, and work centered. The first part gathers evidence in support of this claim from the works of Julian Dodd, Peter Kivy, James O. Young, Aron Edidin, and Stephen Davies. In the second part of the article, I reject this received view. Evidence from actual performance practice, as well as from the practitioners’ reflection on their activity, belies the received view outlined in the first part of the article. I conclude by drawing three methodological lessons from these oversights.     

Personality correlates of physical fitness

In this article, I examine the relation between personality and physical fitness. One group (N = 97) of male adults completed the Hogan Personality Inventory and five nationally recognized physical fitness batteries. A second group (N = 35) completed the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory and a set of medical and physical performance assessments. Results indicate that physical fitness must be defined in multidimensional terms and that fitness is related to self-confidence and self-discipline. Measures of psychopathology were unrelated to measures of health and fitness. These data suggest that the personal qualities associated with fitness are also those that promote and extend health.     

Overconfidence in Probability and Frequency Judgments: A Critical Examination

The overconfidence observed in calibration studies has recently been questioned on both psychological and methodological grounds. In the first part of the article we discuss these issues and argue that overconfidence cannot be explained as a selection bias, and that it is not eliminated by random sampling of questions. In the second part of the article, we compare probability judgments for single events with judgments of relative frequency. Subjects received a target individual's personality profile and then predicted the target's responses to a series of binary questions. One group predicted the responses of an individual target, while a second group estimated the relative frequency of responses among all target subjects who shared a given personality profile. Judgments of confidence and estimates of relative frequency were practically indistinguishable; both exhibited substantial overconfidence and were highly correlated with independent judgments of representativeness.