The information theoretic entropy function as a total expected participation index for communication network experiments

This paper shows how the concept of an incidence matrix of communications can be used to define the entropy of a finite scheme. The properties of the entropy function are examined and the function is found to be best interpreted as a total expected participation index. Data is presented showing the relationship between structural centrality and the new total expected participation index. In general, as the network becomes more centralized the smaller the value of the participation index and as the network becomes more structurally decentralized the greater the participation index.This research was supported in part by Ford Foundation Grant 1-40055 to the Graduate School of Industrial Administration at Carnegie Institute of Technology for Research in Organizational Behavior.The author wishes to acknowledge the aid of Terry B. Marbach in the preparation of data.     

Problems of Work Evaluation

In reviewing the history of the development of techniques of work evaluation, four different approaches are appraised: (1) the mental testing approach, (2) the job analysis approach, (3) the work-sample approach, and (4) the situational assessment approach. Each of these sets of methods is found to arise from somewhat different sectors of society, to serve differing interests, and to have differing objectives. After examination of the merits and limitations of each of the four approaches, the conclusion is drawn that “no one of these four methods can do everything; each deals with a restricted facet of a many-faceted problem.” Attention is called to the general need for validation through professional observation in unprotected industrial settings.     

Saturation of red: A prothetic continuum

A battery of procedures was used to scale the saturation of colors produced by mixtures of red and gray papers. By direct magnitude estimation, the apparent saturation was found to grow as the1.7 power of the percentage of red in the mixture. The power law was confirmed by the cross-modality matching of loudness to saturation. The inverse continuum, paleness, was also scaled. Saturation appears to be a prothetic continuum because the category scale is curved and the subjective size of the jnd increases as saturation increases.     

Oculomotor adaptation to wedge prisms with no part of the body seen

When S looks at a visual target through prisms, adaptive shifts in reaching behavior occur even though he sees no part of his body through the prisms. These shifts are caused by a change in the judgment of the direction of gaze (oculomotor change), which in turn is caused by two secondary prismatic effects: (a) asymmetry of the visual display and (b) apparent rotation about a vertical axis of a panel or wall facing S. The “asymmetry” factor contributes 22% of the total oculomotor change, and the “rotation” effect contributes the remaining 78%. Oculomotor change is not facilitated by eye-movement activity. The adaptive oculomotor change induces a non-adaptive proprioception change about one-tenth as large as the oculomotor change. These findings are capable of accounting for the previously unexplained results reported by Wooster in 1923, and also for the current controversy about the role of reafferent stimulation in sensorymotor adaptation.     

Regression effect in psychophysical judgment

Psychophysical judgment, like all other kinds of judgment, involves a matching or equating of two different domains. When the judgment involves the matching of values on two perceptual continua, the observer tends, on the average, to constrict the range of his adjustments on whichever variable is placed under his control. When the observer adjusts each variable in turn, two different regression lines are produced. This regression effect presumably occurs whenever the results of the matching judgments yield less than a perfect correlation. Illustrative examples are given for the continua, loudness, vibration, brightness, and duration.     

Sex differences in the duration of visual attention

Normal adult males and females looked at a series of photographs containing either a single adult male or female. Ss viewed each picture for as long as they wished. Assuming that measures of the duration of attention would reflect Ss attraction for the opposite sex, it was hypothesized that Ss would spend relatively more time viewing photographs of the opposite sex. The results failed to support the hypothesis. Although males did not differentially attend to the stimuli, females looked significantly longer at the females than they did at the males. The results were interpreted in terms of the “overt sexual content” of the stimuli and socially conditioned attentiveness and inattentiveness.     

Sex differences in the duration of visual attention

Normal adult males and females looked at a series of photographs containing either a single adult male or female. Ss viewed each picture for as long as they wished. Assuming that measures of the duration of attention would reflect Ss attraction for the opposite sex, it was hypothesized that Ss would spend relatively more time viewing photographs of the opposite sex. The results failed to support the hypothesis. Although males did not differentially attend to the stimuli, females looked significantly longer at the females than they did at the males. The results were interpreted in terms of the “overt sexual content” of the stimuli and socially conditioned attentiveness and inattentiveness.