When not to choose: A case study

Life situations often seem to require dualistic, either or decision making, but this common method does not always clarify moral decisions. To show this, standard arguments on why to choose or not to choose the sex or ones child are presented. Then, our feminist thinking, which regards clusters of values, and which reframes questions rather than choosing between desirable alternatives, suggests another possibility, in a gynandrous world vision.     

Circadian factors during sustained performance: Background and methodology

Cornell University Medical College, Westchester Division, The New York Hospital, White Plains, New York It is well established that there is a complex timekeeping mechanism in the human brain. This mechanism is associated with a variety of physiological and psychological rhythms having a period of about a day, and thus referred to as circadian rhythms. The circadian system has recently been modeled in terms of two underlying oscillators, one much more resistant to changes in routine than the other. These oscillators are considered to be endogenous, that is, internal to the organism, and not reliant for their existence upon changes in the person’s environment or general behavior. They thus continue to run even when the sleep/wake cycle is suspended, as in sustained operations. Thus, by their very nature, sustained operations require the individual to override the inputs that are coming from his or her circadian system (especially the indication that sleep is required). The aim of this paper is to provide a background to the area of circadian rhythms research, including a section on the methodology, so that the impact of the circadian system on sustained operations can be better understood.     

When is an easy task difficult and vice versa? A reply to lane

Lane has argued that kantowitz and Knight incorrectly predicted an interaction between primary and secondary task difficulty for the variable-allocation model of attention. It is shown that such an interaction is indeed obtained if task-performance difficulty is defined in terms of capacity and only reasonable transformations of data are permitted. This interaction holds for any set of monotonic resource operating characteristics.     

Experimental evidence for the similarity of personality and attitude item responding

The process of responding to attitude items was broken down into a series of cognitive stages and a model offered. To test this model, subjects responded to attitude items varying in Extremity under two or five response alternative formats. By measuring response times, and applying Sternberg's (1969) additive factor method, the model was supported. The results were discussed in terms of previous process work involving personality items and sentence verification tasks.     

Job attachment,satisfaction, and turnover among public sector employees

This study sought (1) to compare the relative predictive powers of job attachment and job satisfaction with respect to turnover among a sample of public employees; and (2) to examine individual and job-related influences on both attitudes. It was found that attachment was a more effective predictor of turnover than overall satisfaction (or any facet of satisfaction), even when the alternative attitude was partialled out. In addition, it was found that individual employee characteristics were more strongly related to attachment than were job characteristics, while the opposite was found for satisfaction. The findings are discussed in the light of previous evidence, and implications are drawn for research in vocational behavior.     

The effects of memory load and the contrast of the rod signal on partial report superiority in a Sperling task

Subjects participated in a Sperling task. The independent variables included delay of report cue, dark background field vs. a light background field intense enough to nearly saturate the rod system (duration of rod icon), and whether or not subjects were required to retain a list of letters or words (memory load) while performing in the Sperling task. Partial report superiority is normally taken as an indication of iconic memory. However, the main result was that memory load, which presumably does not affect the duration of the icon, increased partial report superiority. The effect of luminance of the background field was to reduce the partial report superiority. The results show that the existence of a partial report superiority and/or a decaying partial report curve does not necessarily imply the existence of an icon or visual storage.