Increasing volunteering at a residential facility: An experimental evaluation of a volunteer assistance program

A helpful component for comprehensive residential services for developmentally disabled persons is volunteer assistance. This investigation involved the evaluation of a program developed to increase the amount of volunteer assistance provided to a public residential facility. The program consisted of three types of related procedures: systematic volunteer recruitment steps, specific volunteer activities at the facility, and consequence/recognition for the volunteer assistance. The program was successively implemented to involve students as volunteers from two local universities, and resulted in an increase in new students volunteering from both universities. Additionally, the frequency with which the students volunteered at the residential facility increased substantially from both universities relative to control periods during which the volunteer program was not in effect. Results are discussed in terms of the benefits of volunteers and continued research to increase involvement of other prospective groups of volunteers.     

Predicting sales skills

The purpose of this study was to validate a selection process designed to predict sales skills for a telephone sales job. First, a job analysis was performed (n=213) to identify the major functions and behavioral requirements of the job. Next, the test, a situational judgment inventory, was developed, and a concurrent criterion related validation study was completed (n=236). The criterion measures were supervisory ratings of performance. Validity coefficients ranged from r=.16 (p<.01) to r=.24 (p<.001). In conclusion, the situational judgment inventory was found an effective vehicle for measuring telephone sales skills.Sincere thanks to Roz Lobus for her assistance in the earlier phases of this study.     

Book reviews

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

(RE)Inventing Scheffler,or, Defending Objective Educational Research

Israel Scheffler's book Science and Subjectivity (1967) was prescient: His criticisms of attacks on the traditional notions of objectivity and truth that underlie modern science are still relevant nearly thirty years later, when postmodernism and some varieties of feminist epistemology are winning many adherents. Two aspects of Scheffler's book are singled out for discussion – his philosophical style, which is marked by careful, well-developed, and detailed argument (in contrast to many contemporary writers in education who have postmodernist leanings, who merely make assertions about objectivity and so forth); and the actual content of the positions for which he argues.     

In search of common foundations for cortical computation

It is worthwhile to search for forms of coding, processing, and learning common to various cortical regions and cognitive functions. Local cortical processors may coordinate their activity by maximizing the transmission of information coherently related to the context in which it occurs, thus forming synchronized population codes. This coordination involves contextual field (CF) connections that link processors within and between cortical regions. The effects of CF connections are distinguished from those mediating receptive field (RF) input; it is shown how CFs can guide both learning and processing without becoming confused with the transmission of RF information. Simulations explore the capabilities of networks built from local processors with both RF and CF connections. Physiological evidence for synchronization, CFs, and plasticity of the RF and CF connections is described. Coordination via CFs is related to perceptual grouping, the effects of context on contrast sensitivity, amblyopia, implicit influences of color in achromotopsia, object and word perception, and the discovery of distal environmental variables and their interactions through self-organization. Cortical computation could thus involve the flexible evaluation of relations between input signals by locally specialized but adaptive processors whose activity is dynamically associated and coordinated within and between regions through specialized contextual connections.     

Orientation-specific luminance aftereffects

Prolonged viewing of bright vertical (horizontal) gratings alternating with dim horizontal (vertical) gratings generates negative brightness aftereffects that are contingent on the orientation of orthogonal test gratings. The effect is measured by a brightness cancellation technique, similar to the color cancellation technique used in measuring McCollough effects. Like the latter, brightness aftereffects appear to persist for long periods. The magnitude of these aftereffects is a positive monotonic function of the luminance difference between the inducing gratings, and it depends on the conditions of induction; monocular induction generates larger aftereffects than binocular induction does. The aftereffect transfers interocularly, although its magnitude in the contralateral eye is substantially attenuated; binocular measurement, following monocular induction, results in even smaller aftereffects. An attempt to understand these findings within the computational model of brightness perception developed by Grossberg and Mingolla (1985a, 1985b) is presented.     

Social processing errors among paranoid personalities

The present study tested clinical hypotheses about the social processing attributes of paranoid personalities (PP). Eighteen PPs and 18 normal controls (NC) viewed standardized role plays (Dodge, 1986) in which a provocation occurred but the protagonist's intention varied (i.e., ambiguous, accidental, hostile, or prosocial). Subjects identified the intention behind the action and then chose a response to that action (e.g., ignore what he did). The results indicated that PPs and NCs did not differ on intentioncue detection when the intention was clear, but PPs had a significantly higher rate of misreading ambiguous situations. Furthermore, when intentions were ambiguous, PPs were more likely than NCs to identify them as hostile intentions. Finally, PPs' reactions to the vignettes were different from normal controls' when the perceived intention was either prosocial or accidential. PPs were more likely to respond with anger and less likely to ignore the event, compared to NCs. These data provide initial support for clinical notions about the aberrant social processing of paranoid personalities.