Microcomputer Applications: Microcomputer Applications: Accelerating the Salesperson Learning Curve

Marketing researchers, in general, have increased their usage of multi-item scaled measures dramatically in the past decade. This article relates a project that categorized and summarized the uses of these measures during the 1980's. It describes first some general findings vis-a-vis all areas of marketing research and then gives some highlights of sales related measures in specific. Finally, based on our observations during the course of the project we make some basic recommendations for the improvement of scale-measurement and reporting.     

Effect of Presentation Format and Expertise on Attacking-Drill Memorization in Soccer

This study investigates the effects of expertise and presentation format on memorization processes in 24 expert and 24 novice soccer players, using a 2 × 3 factorial design with factors expertise (novice vs. expert) and presentation format (static vs. dynamic vs. combined). Players completed a recall reconstruction test and rated their invested mental effort after studying a static, dynamic and combined format presentation. Results indicated (a) that novices benefited more from the static than dynamic format, while expert players benefited more from the dynamic than static format; and (b) a negative effect of the combined format on the learning process of the two groups. Findings suggest the need to adapt the presentation format to players with different levels of expertise.     

Diversity cues on recruitment websites: investigating the effects on job seekers' information processing

Although job seekers' motivation to process the information encountered during recruitment partially influences recruitment success, little is known about what motivates more thorough information processing. To address this issue, we integrated recruitment and social information processing theories to examine the possibility that diversity cues on recruitment websites influence website viewers' processing of presented information. Utilizing a controlled experiment and a hypothetical organization, Study 1 revealed that both Blacks and Whites spent more time viewing recruitment websites and better recalled website information when the sites included racial diversity cues. These relationships were stronger for Blacks, and organizational attractiveness perceptions mediated these effects for Blacks but not for Whites. Study 2 found similar relationships for Black and White participants viewing real organizational recruitment websites after taking into account perceived organizational attributes and website design effects. Implications of these findings for recruiting organizations are discussed.     

Electrophysiological correlates of exemplar-specific processes in implicit and explicit memory

The present ERP study investigated the retrieval of task-irrelevant exemplar-specific information under implicit and explicit memory conditions. Subjects completed either an indirect memory test (a natural/artificial judgment) or a direct recognition memory test. Both test groups were presented with new items, identical repetitions, and perceptually different but conceptually similar exemplars of previously seen study objects. Implicit and explicit memory retrieval elicited clearly dissociable ERP components that were differentially affected by exemplar changes from study to test. In the indirect test, identical repetitions, but not different exemplars, elicited a significant ERP repetition priming effect. In contrast, both types of repeated objects gave rise to a reliable old/new effect in the direct test. The results corroborate that implicit and explicit memory fall back on distinct cognitive representation and, more importantly, indicate that these representations differ in the type of stimulus information stored. Implicit retrieval entailed obligatory access to exemplar-specific perceptual information, despite its being task irrelevant. In contrast, explicit retrieval proved to be more flexible with conceptual and perceptual information accessed according to task demands.     

One, two or three memories: some comments and new findings

Comments are presented on a paper by Tore Helstrup, ‘One, two or three memories? A problem-solving approach to memory for performed acts’ (Acta Psychologica, 1987, 66, 37–68). There he proposed that a monistic strategy-based explanation is sufficient to explain memory for performed acts and that a multi-code (e.g. Engelkamp and Zimmer 1985) is not necessary and raises a number of problems. We claim that his findings do not disconfirm our multi-code model. Using our model, we would predict the same results in nearly all of the experiments. Because there are some results which are contradictory to a strategy-free code redundancy model, and also further results which cannot be accounted for solely by a monistic model, we propose that a valuable approach would be to combine his assumption that subjects behave strategically with our multi-code approach.     

Discrimination of temporal relations by pigeons

In four experiments, pigeons were tested on a duration comparison task involving the successive presentation of two visual stimuli that varied in duration from trial to trial. Following presentation of the durations, two choice keys were lit, and reinforcement for choices was based on the temporal relation between duration of the pair. In Experiment 1, the range of durations was varied over conditions. Responding changed as an orderly function of the ratio of the two durations. There was a decrease in discrimination accuracy as average duration increased over condition but no difference in accuracy between shorter and longer problems within a duration range. There was no systematic response bias over conditions for all problems within a range, but there was a bias to report the second duration longer than the first for "long" problems within a range. In Experiment 2, the pigeons were transferred from a task involving spatially differentiated choices to one involving hue-differentiated choices. Performance was similar to that of the spatial procedure of Experiment 1. Additional analyses revealed that although information provided by a single duration of the pair was sometimes predictive of the temporal relation between pair members, responding was also based on the relation and comparison of both durations. In Experiment 3, the pigeons were exposed to a single duration range that included many durations from the four ranges of Experiment 1. Discrimination accuracy was comparable in the fourth and longest category. Manipulation of absolute reinforcement rate in Experiment 4 resulted in no chang in discrimination accuracy, suggesting that the decline in accuracy over conditions of Experiment 1 could not be attributed to decreases in reinforcement rate that accompanied lengthier durations. The results are discussed in terms of theories of animal timing, with Staddon's (1983, 1984) temporal perspective model providing the most systematic account of all aspects of performance.     

Monotone invariant clustering procedures

A major justification for the hierarchical clustering methods proposed by Johnson is based upon their invariance with respect to monotone increasing transformations of the original similarity measures. Several alternative procedures are presented in this paper that also share in the same property of invariance. One of these techniques constructs a hierarchy of partitions by sequentially minimizing a monotone invariant goodness-of-fit statistic; the other techniques construct a hierarchy of partitions by successively subdividing the complete set of objects until one partition class is defined for each individual member in the set. A numerical example comparing these alternative procedures with Johnson's two methods is duscussed in terms of a simplified computational scheme for obtaining the necessary hierarchies.     

An empirical comparison of several interval estimation procedures for coefficient alpha

Following a general introduction to Tukey's Jackknife technique and the construction of approximate confidence intervals, ten variants of the procedure are defined for giving interval estimates for coefficient alpha. A data base of known population characteristics was generated and used to compare the robustness of the ten Jackknife alternatives with Feldt's well-known sampling theory based upon the assumptions of normality. The empirical results indicate that out of the ten variants, defined by five transformations and two methods of data subdivision, only two are justifiable competitors to Feldt's approach.     

Data analysis and the connectivity of random graphs

This paper presents empirical information on the adequacy of an asymptotic approximation developed by Erdös and Rényi dealing with the minimum number of lines needed to connect a random graph. It is shown that the approximation is poor for several data analysis applications of the result previously published in the behavioral sciences.     

Matrix reorganization and dynamic programming: Applications to paired comparisons and unidimensional seriation

A recursive dynamic programming strategy is discussed for optimally reorganizing the rows and simultaneously the columns of ann ×n proximity matrix when the objective function measuring the adequacy of a reorganization has a fairly simple additive structure. A number of possible objective functions are mentioned along with several numerical examples using Thurstone's paired comparison data on the relative seriousness of crime. Finally, the optimization tasks we propose to attack with dynamic programming are placed in a broader theoretical context of what is typically referred to as the quadratic assignment problem and its extension to cubic assignment.Partial support for this research was provided by NIJ Grant 80-IJ-CX-0061.