Computer-Assisted Careers Guidance Systems as Decision Support Systems

'Decision support systems' are computer systems which are aimed at improving decisions made by managers. An examination of the literature on decision support systems suggests that there are similarities between these systems and computer-aided careers guidance systems. These similarities —and differences -are explored, and a number of ways in which each approach might learn from the other are suggested.     

Role of health locus of control beliefs and expectations of treatment efficacy in adjustment to cancer

We examined the effects of health locus of control beliefs (self-, doctor, and chance control) and expectations of treatment efficacy on short-term psychological adjustment in a sample of newly diagnosed cancer patients. The role of these beliefs and expectations in moderating the relation between (perceived and actual) disease severity and depression was also examined. The data were collected within one week of diagnosis. The relation between perceptions of disease severity and depression was weaker for those who believed that they could personally control their health and for those who held positive expectations about the effects of complying with medical treatment. Similar patterns were found when disease severity was defined in terms of prognosis for survival. Strong negative correlations between self-control/treatment expectations and depression were found for those who perceived that their illness was very severe. The results for chance and doctor control were less consistent. The stability of health control beliefs and treatment expectations over the course of a serious long-term illness is discussed.     

The group-as-a-whole approach in Foulksian group analytic psychotherapy

The group analytic group-as-a-whole approach of Foulkes privileges the concept of the group matrix. The term matrix is a metaphor for the network of all individual mental processes, the psychological medium in which they meet, communicate, and interact. The developing group matrix acts both as a container and as a holding environment for the psychic processes of the individual members in the group context. The concept of coherency is evoked to describe the process of the developing capacity of a group to be therapeutic. The concept of coherency is applied both to conscious and to unconscious mental process.     

Effects of context on sweet and bitter tastes: unrelated to sensitivity to PROP (6-n-propylthiouracil).

In a double-shifting context paradigm, subjects gave magnitude estimates of the perceived intensity of qualitatively dissimilar taste substances (saccharin and quinine, sucrose and quinine) or qualitatively similar ones (saccharin and sucrose), with each pair of substances taking on different contextual sets of concentrations in different sessions. The dissimilar pairs produced substantial differential effects of context (e.g., a particular concentration of saccharin or sucrose was judged more intense than a particular quinine in one contextual setting, less intense in another), but the similar pair did not. This result accords with the hypothesis that differential context effects depend on qualitative similarity. Contrary to expectations, however, the magnitude of the context effect did not differ in tasters and nontasters of the bitter substance 6-n-propylthiouracil (PROP), groups previously shown to differ in sensitivity to bitterness in saccharin. Similarity judgments suggest that saccharin and sucrose were qualitatively alike for all subjects, regardless of sensitivity to PROP.     

Optional processes in similarity judgments.

This research investigates the nature of similarity relations among three pairs of interacting dimensions: (1) the integral dimensions of auditory pitch and loudness, (2) the configural dimensions of paired parentheses, and (3) the cross-modally corresponding dimensions of visual position and auditory pitch. We evaluated the rules by which information from each dimension combines in similarity judgments. Our claim is that, when judging similarity, processes that are obligatory, or what we call mandatory processes, can commingle with processes of choice, or what we call optional processes. By varying instructions, we found strong evidence of optional processing. Instructions to rate overall similarity encouraged subjects to attend to stimuli as wholes and led to a Euclidean rule in similarity scaling. Instructions to focus on dimensions encouraged subjects to consider each stimulus dimension separately and led to a city-block rule. We argue that optional processes may obscure mandatory ones, and so need to be identified before mandatory processes can be understood.     

Effects of context on sweet and bitter tastes: Unrelated to sensitivity to PROP (6-npropylthiouracil)

In a double-shifting context paradigm, subjects gave magnitude estimates of the perceived intensity of qualitatively dissimilar taste substances (saccharin and quinine, sucrose and quinine) or qualitatively similar ones (saccharin and sucrose), with each pair of substances taking on different contextual sets of concentrations in different sessions. The dissimilar pairs produced substantial differential effects of context (e.g., a particular concentration of saccharin or sucrose was judged more intense than a particular quinine in one contextual setting, less intense in another), but the similar pair did not. This result accords with the hypothesis that differential context effects depend on qualitative similarity. Contrary to expectations, however, the magnitude of the context effect did not differ in tasters and nontasters of the bitter substance 6-n-propylthiouracil (PROP), groups previously shown to differ in sensitivity to bitterness in saccharin. Similarity judgments suggest that saccharin and sucrose were qualitatively alike for ail subjects, regardless of sensitivity to PROP.     

Better Candidates Fly Fewer Training Hours: Another Time Testing Pays Off

The relationship between Pilot Candidate Selection Method (PCSM) scores and the number of flying training hours required to complete United States Air Force Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT) was investigated on a sample of 1,082 graduates. This was done to demonstrate that ability testing has real world correlates and that cost savings accrued as a result of ability testing. The criterion ‘extra flying hours’ was computed by subtracting each student's cumulative flying hours from the sample mean. The correlations (corrected for range restriction) between PCSM scores and primary and advanced flying training extra hours were ?0.206 and ?0.270, respectively. Demonstrating that UPT graduates with higher PCSM scores required fewer flying hours to complete training facilitates the estimation of the cost avoidance achieved by ability tests.     

Differential effects of stimulus context on perceived length: Implications for the horizontal-vertical illusion

Six experiments examined orientation-specific effects of stimulus context on the visual perception of horizontal and vertical lengths: Using a paired-comparison method, Experiments 1–5 showed that the probability of judging a given vertical line to be longer than a given horizontal line was relatively great when the stimulus set comprised relatively long horizontals and short verticals, and relatively small when the stimulus set comprised short horizontals with long verticals. To the extent that stimulus context exerts orientation-specific effects on perceived length, it thereby modulates the degree to which verticals appear longer than physically equivalent horizontals: the horizontal—vertical illusion (HVI). Under various contextual conditions, the HVI was as small as 3% (horizontals had to be 3% greater than verticals to be perceived as equally long) and as great as 15%, equaling about 12% in a “neutral” context. In Experiment 6, subjects judged the absolute physical length of each stimulus, and the results indicated that stimulus context acted largely by decreasing perceived lengths. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that differential effects of context reflect a process of stimulus-specific perceptual attenuation.