Stochastic pairwise comparative judgements and direct ratings of alternatives in the REMBRANDT system

The REMBRANDT system for multicriteria decision analysis consists of both the multiplicative variant of the AHP (which employs a method of pairwise comparative judgements by a decision maker to arrive at final impact scores for the alternatives under consideration) and SMART, the simple multiattribute rating technique (which utilizes direct rating of alternatives to achieve final impact scores). This paper examines the effect of imprecision or uncertainty in the decision maker's pairwise judgements or ratings of alternatives by expressing each pairwise judgement or rating as a probability distribution, and the structure of REMBRANDT's component models is exploited to derive interval judgements or interval ratings of the alternatives’ final impact scores. These interval judgements or interval ratings can be used to determine the probability of rank reversal amongst alternatives, i.e. to assess the stability of the final impact score vector. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Multiple-look effects on temporal discrimination within sound sequences

The multiple-look notion holds that the difference limen (DL) decreases with multiple observations. We investigated this notion for temporal discrimination in isochronous sound sequences. In Experiment 1, we established a multiple-look effect when sequences comprised nine standard time intervals (S) followed by an increasing number of comparison time intervals (C), but no multiple-look effect when one trailing C interval was preceded by an increasing number of S intervals. In Experiment 2, we extended the design. There were four sequential conditions: (a) 9 leading S intervals followed by 1, 2, …, or 9 C-intervals; (b) 9 leading C intervals followed by 1, 2, …, or 9 S intervals; (c) 9 trailing C-intervals preceded by 1, 2, …, or 9 S-intervals; and (d) 9 trailing S-intervals preceded by 1, 2, …, or 9 C-intervals. Both the interval accretions before and after the tempo change caused multiple-look effects, irrespective of the time order of S and C. Complete deconfounding of the number of intervals before and after the tempo change was accomplished in Experiment 3. The multiple-look effect of interval accretion before the tempo change was twice as big as that after the tempo change. The diminishing returns relation between the DL and interval accretion could be described well by a reciprocal function.     

Professional efficacy,exhaustion, and work characteristics among police officers: A longitudinal test of the learning‐related predictions of the demand—control model

The present study addressed the relationships among professional efficacy, emotional exhaustion, and job characteristics (job demands and job control) in the context of a two‐wave panel study among 828 Dutch police officers. Based on the demand–control model, we expected that high demands/high control would be positively related to professional efficacy, and that high demands/low control would be related to high levels of exhaustion. Moreover, we hypothesized that high levels of exhaustion would lead to lower levels of professional efficacy and that high levels of efficacy would lead to low levels of exhaustion. Structural equation modelling largely supported these predictions. High demands were longitudinally related to high levels of efficacy and high levels of exhaustion; high control was longitudinally related to high levels of efficacy. Further, efficacy and exhaustion were indeed mutually related. Finally, high levels of exhaustion were longitudinally related to high levels of demands. We conclude that there are complex, yet theoretically, and practically interpretable relations among efficacy, strain and work characteristics.     

The interactive effects of belongingness and charisma on helping and compliance

This study tests the main and interactive effects of belongingness and perceived charismatic leadership on 2 forms of organizational citizenship behavior (helping and compliance). In line with expectations, a study of 115 manager-subordinate dyads demonstrates that employees show more helping (manager rated) when they have a stronger sense of belongingness at work and more helping as well as compliance when they perceive their leader to be more charismatic (subordinate rated). Belongingness partially mediates the relationship between charisma and helping. Also, as hypothesized, belongingness and charisma have interactive effects on employees' helping and compliance. The impact of perceived charisma on these behaviors is stronger for employees with a low sense of belongingness at work than for individuals with a higher sense of belongingness.     

Preference and discrimination between response-dependent and response-independent schedules of reinforcement

Four Asian quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica) were exposed to concurrent-chain schedules, the terminal links of which were either variable-interval 30 sec and variable-time 30 sec, or fixed-interval 30 sec and fixed-time 30 sec. Except for one bird that exhibited a preference for the variable-interval schedule over the variable-time schedule, no consistent preferences were demonstrated for response-dependent or response-independent schedules. However, response rates were three times greater on response-dependent than on response-independent schedules. The discrimination between terminal-link schedules was rapidly recovered after the schedule positions were reversed. Casual observations revealed that the birds engaged in stereotypic circling and pecking while the response-independent schedules were operative.     

Structural stimulus complexity: one factor influencing the clarity of iconic storage

Using the procedure of partial report, or the probe technique, five Ss were required to process the position of items from a matrix containing fewer items than matrix cells. Different sets of stimulus cards containing items of varying structural complexity such as circles, 4-sided and 8-sided shapes were used to test the hypothesis that structural stimulus complexity and clarity of iconic storage are inversely related. Results were in accordance with the hypothesis and implications for the processing of visual information were discussed.     

The analysis of slalom-ski type movement using a ski-simulator apparatus

The research reported in this paper was designed to assess the feasibility of using a novel apparatus (a so-called ski-movement simulator) in the study of the acquisition of gross cyclical motor skills and further to develop analytic techniques appropriate to the movements involved. Three such methods are discussed: (1) the mean absolute deviation from the middle position as a measure of the ‘amplitude’ of the movement; (2) an auto-correlation coefficient as a measure of the ‘timing’ of the movement; (3) a cross-correlation coefficient as a measure of the ‘smoothness’ of the movement.Progress in learning - as shown by the measures of amplitude and smoothness- showed the expected trend, in that performance improved throughout the whole of the duration of the experiment (four consecutive days), but the rate of improvement gradually decreased. The largest effects were found for the ‘amplitude’ measure, which had the drawback that the ultimate level of performance was constrained by the body weight of the subject. The ‘smoothness’ measure did not suffer from this disadvantage and its suitability as a measure designed to evaluate gross skill acquisition in a laboratory situation is discussed.The ‘timing’ measure did not follow the same trend and reasons for this finding are proposed. Overall, it would seem that the different measures have varying usefulness in the study of skill acquisition and it is therefore advisable to study them separately.