Games teams play: A method for investigating team coordination and performance

Teams are playing an increasingly important role in the workplace. However, reviews of the team performance literature have suggested that there are serious deficiencies in our understanding of team processes and performance (e.g., Dyer, 1984). These difficulties may be attributable, in part, to the lack of laboratory methodologies to investigate team performance. This paper describes the use of low-fidelity simulations as a potentially useful paradigm for researching team coordination and performance. This paradigm is advantageous in that it offers relatively high levels of experimental control and task representation at a low cost.     

Altering memory through recall: The effects of cue-guided retrieval processing

Three experiments were designed to investigate the influence of initial recall on memory by assessing delayed recall after different immediate cued-recall tests. In all experiments, subjects performed semantic and phonemic encoding tasks on a word list. The subjects then received a cued-recall test that cued the target using the same word as the context word in the encoding task, a test that cued the target with a word from the same level at which the target was encoded, a test that cued the target with a cue from a different level at which the target was encoded, or no immediate-recall test. One day later, the subjects performed a final cued-recall test in which the type of cue (semantic or phonemic) was varied. Consistently, delayed recall was facilitated primarily when the cue on the immediate test was from the same level as the cue on the delayed test. This pattern of facilitation suggests that immediate cued-recall produces an elaboration of an existing memory representation that is closely tied to the type of cue used on the immediate test.     

Evoked potentials and the study of sentence comprehension

Evoked brain potentials were used to monitor moment-by-moment decisions during language comprehension. Subjects read sentences containing temporary syntactic ambiguities for which one of the possible interpretations was semantically implausible. The N400 component of the evoked potential, which is sensitive to implausibility, was used to discover when during a sentence subjects made a decision about the ambiguity. The results demonstrate that readers try to interpret a syntactic ambiguity early in a sentence rather than waiting for disambiguating information. This introduces a new way to use brain activity to study sentence comprehension processes.     

Body image and comprehension of body part names

The relation between awareness of body topology and auditory comprehension of body part names was studied in 22 aphasic subjects. Two nonverbal tasks—human figure drawing and placement of individual body parts in relation to a drawn face—were compared with two auditory tests of body part comprehension. The two nonverbal and the two verbal tasks were closely correlated with each other, but there was no relation involving either of the verbal tests with either of the nonverbal tests. Selection errors in the auditory comprehension tasks were predominantly semantically based and equally distributed between functionally analogous parts and parts related by location on the body.Dr. Benedet's effort in this study was supported by a grant from the Hispano-North American Joint Committee for Cultural and Educational Cooperation.     

Response to commentaries on “A neurobiological model for near-death experiences”

This work has received financial support from FONDECYT (Project 1111-88). The authors also acknowledge the helpful comments of Dr. Bruce Cassels.     

The relationship between variability of intertap intervals and interval duration

Summary Subjects tracked intervals in a synchronization paradigm at interval durations of 180, 210, 240, 270, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900, and 1,000 ms. The variability of intertap intervals (ITIs) shows a sudden increase near 300 ms. This increase is interpreted as indicating the transition from automatic to controlled movement. It is suggested that the sudden change in the variability of ITIs does not reflect the operation of different timing mechanisms at short and long intervals, but differences in the way in which attentional processes come to bear on movement initiation for different interval durations. In contrast to previous findings reported in the literature, a U-shaped function between interval duration and variability in the 300-to-1,000-ms range was not observed.     

Forecasting the impact of the federal sentencing guidelines

The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, which created the U.S. Sentencing Commission, required that the commisson consider prison capacity in drafting sentencing guidelines. As part of the commission's efforts to meet this requirement, we developed a computer simulation capable of projecting the impact of the commission's guidelines on future sentences and prison populations. According to our projections, “straight” probation sentences will be reduced significantly under the guidelines. However, reducing the use of probation will generate only modest demands on the prisons, and then mostly for community corrections phased in over the course of 5 years. We also project that, while average time served for violent offenses will increase substantially, average time served for most property crimes will remain largely the same. Finally, while we forecast that federal prison populations will grow markedly by the end of this century, this is more a result of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 and the career offender provision of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 than a result of the guidelines.     

Overt integrity tests versus personality-based measures of delinquency: An empirical comparison

This study examined the ability of both an overt integrity test and a personality-based measure of delinquency to predict on-the-job theft and counterproductivity. A heterogeneous sample of 105 employees anonymously completed both tests and a criterion checklist that included a 9-item theft subscale and a 12-item counterproductivity subscale. Results indicated that the overt integrity test was a superior predictor of both on-the-job theft and drug abuse compared to the personality-based measure. The overt integrity test was also a slightly better predictor of general counterproductivity. These findings and their implications are discussed.