PROJECT A: SPECIFICATION OF THE PREDICTOR DOMAIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF NEW SELECTION/ CLASSIFICATION TESTS

A major goal of the Army Selection and Classification Project was to develop an experimental predictor battery that would best supplement the Armed Forces Vocational Aptitude Battery for making selection and classification decisions for entry-level enlisted personnel. That is, what predictor measures would best serve the needs of all the jobs in an entire selection/classification system? This paper describes the characteristics of the new test battery and the procedures that were used to develop it. The major steps in the procedure were a structured literature search using a standard protocol, an extensive expert judgment study of expected true validities for a population of predictor variables against a population of performance components, fabrication of modularized software and a special response pedestal for computerized measurement of perceptual and psychomotor abilities, evaluations of experimental measures in three iterative pilot tests and one major field test, and a series of reviews by a panel of scientific advisers. The test battery that resulted from this 2 1/2-year development effort is described. The basic psychometric properties of each measure, as determined in a large concurrent validation sample, are also described.     

The psychoanalytic process: the developmental and the integrative

Psychoanalysis is a treatment that focuses on intrapsychic events and activates integrative tendencies to promote-insights. Almost from the time it originated, however, it was also promoted as a therapy informed by the interpersonal, inducing change through experiences generated within the psychoanalytic situation. In recent years the interpersonal or object relations approach has come to be categorized as "developmental," a term that fosters no end of ambiguities. The resulting confusion compromises the study of the actual developmental process on the one hand and the structure-enhancing features of transactions on the other. This encumbers research on the psychoanalytic process. The author distinguishes the intrapsychic from the interpersonal, the integrative from the developmental, and the two very different realms of psychological activities currently advanced as "developmental."     

Relationships among defensive styles, cognitive styles, processing styles, and attentional styles of normal adolescents

Cognitive and psychodynamic theorists agree that an individual's personality and behavior are determined by both cognitive and dynamic processes. This study examined the relationship among three cognitive approaches--cognitive style, attentional style, and processing style--and examined their relations to defensive style. Adolescents from Grades 11 and 12 (146 boys, 164 girls) were examined in groups for cognitive style (Group Embedded Figures Test), attentional style (Test of Attentional and Interpersonal Style), processing style (a sequential/simultaneous processing test battery), and defensive style (Defense Mechanism Inventory). Least squares completely randomized two-way analyses of variance (or analyses of covariance where applicable) were employed to assess the relations among the three cognitive measures and/or between the cognitive measures and defensive style. While most comparisons were nonsignificant, a significant relationship was observed between sequential processing and field-dependence and between simultaneous processing and field-independence. Also, a trend was noted between field-independence and ideational defenses and between field-dependence and repression-based defenses.     

Structure of learning environment variables under two instructional conditions

The present study investigated the congruence between the factor structures of the learning environment and cognitive variables for mathematics and English courses in Grade 10. Three common factors were obtained in each course. Procedural characteristics and cognitive factors in mathematics were highly similar to the corresponding factors in English. However, the formative characteristics factor identified in mathematics was not congruent to the corresponding factor in English. Learning environment variables produced two factors. These factors resembled the congruent factor properties for the two courses when the learning environment and cognitive variables were factor analyzed together. Implications for learning and instructional research are mentioned.     

Conversational time patterns and mutual influence in parent-child interactions: A time series approach

Mutual influencing processes are assumed to be the basic building blocks in establishing parentchild bonding and in influencing cognitive and language behavior. A study by Jasnow and Feldstein (1986) revealed that, within the temporal domain of speech, preverbal (9-month-old) infants and their mothers exhibit a pattern of mutual influence (attunement) in their average durations of switching pauses. The general purpose of this research was to extend those findings to children with higher verbal functioning. In addition, parent and child genders, nature of the interaction, and specific aspects of parents' personalities, expressiveness, and instrumentality were considered. Each parent interacted with their 4-or 5-year-old son or daughter in each of two conversations—unstructured (social conversation) and structured (task activity). Conversations were processed by an automated computer system yielding objective measure of turns, vocalizations, pauses, and switching-pause durations. To examine interspeaker influence or attunement of temporal speech patterns, influence coefficients were computer for each speaker on a turn-by-turn basis using time series regression. Analysis of these coefficients revealed that: (1) Mutual influence is most evident with switching-pause duration. (2) Structure in the conversation (as defined by the task or parental instrumentality) seems to facilitate attunement for vocalization and switching pause duration. (3) Attunement with girls seems to occur equally well with both parents, while boys exhibit a style of temporal patterning influence which suggests greater identification with the father. (4) Expressiveness seems to facilitate attunement to the child's switching-pause duration.     

A feature model of immediate memory

A feature model of immediate memory is presented, and simulations are described. List items are characterized as multiattribute vectors that can be selectively overwritten by subsequent external events and by the ongoing stream of internal activity. Degraded primary memory vectors are compared with intact secondary memory vectors, and retrieval likelihood is computed as the ratio of similarities. The model is shown to account for the major modality-based phenomena of the immediate serial recall literature, including modality-based temporal grouping effects and the negative effects of phonological similarity.     

Narrative comprehension in adults with right and left hemisphere brain-damage: theme organization.

The effects of delayed presentation of a central theme on the comprehension and interpretation of narratives were investigated in adults with right and left hemisphere brain-damage and normal individuals. The performance of subgroups of the subjects with right and left hemisphere brain-damage also was examined. Right hemisphere brain-damaged groups with anterior and posterior lesions were significantly less accurate and identified significantly fewer central themes when central theme presentation was delayed until the end of a narrative than when the theme was presented at the beginning. Subjects with anterior right hemisphere brain-damage produced significantly more embellishments and confabulations than subjects with posterior damage and non-brain-damaged controls, regardless of theme condition. The performance of non-brain-damaged subjects and subjects with fluent and nonfluent aphasia was unaffected by the organization of the central theme in the narratives.