Vigilance decrement during a simulated general aviation flight

This study examined pilots' vigilance during an extended general aviation flight as measured by their capacity to exercise control over the aircraft during a planned flight. Thirty‐one qualified pilots flew a flight simulator from Wagga Wagga to Bankstown, Sydney, a distance of 207 nautical miles. The flight comprised five separate legs, although three legs were subjected to analysis. On the basis of attentional resource theory, it was hypothesised that task performance would differ based on the requirement for memory retrieval. Consistent with the hypothesis, the results revealed a deterioration in those tasks for which there was a substantial requirement for memory retrieval. Further analysis revealed that the deterioration in performance was best predicted by pilots' perception of the workload associated with the flight and their perception of their ability to exercise control over aircraft during normal conditions. The implications are discussed in terms of system design and training. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Will They Stay or Will They Go? Exploring a Customer-Oriented Approach To Employee Retention

Keeping or losing the best workers can be critical to whether an organization can maintain a competitive advantage and whether operations in the organization run smoothly and efficiently. Simply stated, if the best workers are not retained, an organization can be negatively affected from the operational to the strategic level. This article focuses on employee retention from the perspective of a customer-based model. This approach considers employees as internal customers of management and the model provides organizations ways to influence whether employees decide to stay or go. Additionally, the model distinguishes retention practices based upon the value of employees to the organization. Measurement and application issues are identified along with directions for future research.     

Friend or Foe? The Promise and Pitfalls of Using Social Networking Sites for HR Decisions

The Internet has changed many Human Resource (HR) practices, and techniques such as online job postings and testing have become quite common in HR. However, the use of social networking websites such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Twitter for recruiting, hiring, or terminating individuals is relatively new, but their use for these purposes is clearly growing while research on these practices is lacking. Many questions about using these sites for HR practice have yet to be addressed, including questions about the validity and usefulness of information obtained on these sites, applicant perceptions of employers’ use of these sites, and the legality of using these sites, among others. The current study describes issues associated with using social networking websites for recruiting, staffing/selection, and discipline/termination, and provides recommendations for future research studies in this area.     

Lexicons, contexts, events, and images: commentary on Elman (2009) from the perspective of dual coding theory

Elman (2009) proposed that the traditional role of the mental lexicon in language processing can largely be replaced by a theoretical model of schematic event knowledge founded on dynamic context-dependent variables. We evaluate Elman's approach and propose an alternative view, based on dual coding theory and evidence that modality-specific cognitive representations contribute strongly to word meaning and language performance across diverse contexts which also have effects predictable from dual coding theory.     

Mental illness, criminal risk factors and parole release decisions

Research has not examined whether higher rates of parole denial among inmates with mental illness (MI) are the result of the increased presence of criminal risk factors among this population. Employing a representative sample of inmates with (n = 219) and without (n = 184) MI receiving parole release decisions in 2007, this study tested whether the central eight risk factors for recidivism considered in parole release decisions intervened in the relationship between MI and parole release. MI was associated with possession of a substance use disorder, antisocial personality disorder and violent charges while incarcerated; however, these factors were not related to release decisions. MI was found to have neither a direct nor an indirect effect on release decisions. While results indicate that release decisions appear, to some extent, to be evidence-based, they also suggest considerable discretion is being implemented by parole board members in release decisions above and beyond consideration of criminal risk factors.     

Increasing On-Task Behavior Using Teacher Attention Delivered on a Fixed-Time Schedule

The effectiveness of fixed-time delivery of attention to increase the on-task behavior of 2 students in general education was examined. The teacher in this study provided attention to students on a 5-min fixed-time schedule and responded to students in her typical manner between cued intervals. An ABAB withdrawal design was used to test the effects of the intervention. The results of this study indicate that a fixed-time schedule of attention was effective in increasing students’ on-task behavior and decreasing their off-task behavior. Implications of the study for research and practice are discussed.     

Back to the garden: new visions of posthuman futures

This article examines the contemporary phenomenon of imagining a world from which people have been removed. Such a trend speaks to a utopian impulse, but one that is not comparable to traditional utopian ideas. What does the popularity of books like The World without Us or documentaries such as The Future is Wild, Aftermath: Population Zero, and Life after People say about the current status of utopian ideals, environmental thought, and our cultural understanding of humanity's place in the nature order?     

Predictive and incremental validity of the Violence Risk Appraisal Guide scores with male and female jail inmates

The present study examines the predictive and incremental validity of Violence Risk Appraisal Guide scores in a sample of 328 male and 145 female jail inmates held on felony charges. Significant gender differences were observed in VRAG item and total score means, as well as in correlations between the VRAG and concurrent measures of aggression. VRAG scores significantly predicted institutional misconduct during incarceration and recidivism in the first year postrelease for male inmates but not for female inmates. In terms of incremental validity, VRAG scores predicted institutional misconduct and recidivism beyond that accounted for by psychopathy for male inmates but not for female inmates. Implications for clinical practice and future research are discussed.