Apple slide tachistoscope

We outline a BASIC program and subsidiary machine language timing routines that enable the Apple II series of computers to be employed as control devices for the tachistoscopic presentation of 35-mm slides and the collection of response latencies. The program is functional for experiments that require pictorial stimuli to be presented in up to three separate fields, with precise display times, precise interstimulus and intertriai intervals, and the collection of manual or vocal reaction times with millisecond accuracy. The major advantages of this system are that initial setup costs are substantially lower than those for other similar systems (e.g., Loftus, Gillispie. Tigre, & Nelson, 1984) and that user customization of the program may be accomplished by anyone possessing rudimentary knowledge of the BASIC programming language.     

Information Load: A Test of an Inverted-U Hypothesis with Hourly and Salaried Employees

We surveyed 714 hourly and 516 salaried employees of a midwestern telephone company to test the effects of information load on work-related outcomes. Using curvilinear regression analyses, we found support for our hypothesis that employees are less satisfied with outcomes as the load of information deviates positively or negatively from some level. We also predicted, and found, that this quadratic function was more prevalent in the hourly group than in the salaried group. Implications, future research directions, and limitations of the present study are discussed.     

Parallel distributed processing and neuropsychology: A neural network model of Wisconsin card sorting and verbal fluency

Neural networks can be used as a tool in the explanation of neuropsychological data. Using the Hebbian Learning Rule and other such principles as competition and modifiable interlevel feedback, researchers have successfully modeled a widely used neuropsychological test, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. One of these models is reviewed here and extended to a qualitative analysis of how verbal fluency might be modeled, which demonstrates the importance of accounting for the attentional components of both tests. Difficulties remain in programming sequential cognitive processes within a parallel distributed processing (PDP) framework and integrating exceedingly complex neuropsychological tests such as Proverbs. PDP neural network methodology offers neuropsychologists co-validation procedures within narrowly defined areas of reliability and validity.     

The impact of drug screening on selection decisions

This paper discusses the use of drug screening for employee selection decisions. Common methods of drug screening are described, and a recent study of drug screening accuracy is summarized. It is argued that drug screening is subject to the same standards as are other selection procedures, and that human resource professionals must assume responsibility for understanding the potential problems associated with drug screening. Issues relevant to determining the benefits of drug screening are discussed, and an illustration of the impact of drug screening on decision accuracy is presented. It is suggested that, in many instances, the value of drug screening in the selection process may be low enough to warrant serious concern. Implications for human resource research and practice are noted.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 95th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association in New York; August 31, 1987. The authors would like to thank Michael Bramel for his assistance in locating and summarizing some of the medical literature cited, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.     

The role of visual information in the processing of

Visual information provided by a talker’s mouth movements can influence the perception of certain speech features. Thus, the “McGurk effect” shows that when the syllable /bi/ is presented audibly, in synchrony with the syllable /gi/, as it is presented visually, a person perceives the talker as saying /di/. Moreover, studies have shown that interactions occur between place and voicing features in phonetic perception, when information is presented audibly. In our first experiment, we asked whether feature interactions occur when place information is specified by a combination of auditory and visual information. Members of an auditory continuum ranging from /ibi/ to /ipi/ were paired with a video display of a talker saying /igi/. The auditory tokens were heard as ranging from /ibi/ to /ipi/, but the auditory-visual tokens were perceived as ranging from /idi/ to /iti/. The results demonstrated that the voicing boundary for the auditory-visual tokens was located at a significantly longer VOT value than the voicing boundary for the auditory continuum presented without the visual information. These results demonstrate that place-voice interactions are not limited to situations in which place information is specified audibly. In three follow-up experiments, we show that (1) the voicing boundary is not shifted in the absence of a change in the global percept, even when discrepant auditory-visual information is presented; (2) the number of response alternatives provided for the subjects does not affect the categorization or the VOT boundary of the auditory-visual stimuli; and (3) the original effect of a VOT boundary shift is not replicated when subjects are forced by instruction to \ldrelabel\rd the /b-p/auditory stimuli as/d/or/t/. The subjects successfully relabeled the stimuli, but no shift in the VOT boundary was observed.     

Temporal manipulation of stimulus patterns using the Apple II: Tachistoscopic and part presentation

A technique is described in which line-drawn pictures can be rapidly interlaced, allowing for sequential part presentation or tachistoscopic presentation on the Apple II. This is accomplished using a two-stage process in which the pictorial stimuli are converted into machine code data files and then used to create a rapidly changing display consisting of two or more line drawings. The latter stage could be accomplished in less than 2 msec but is limited by the frame time of the monitor (17–20 msec).     

SPIRITUAL INTELLIGENCE: PROCESSING DIFFERENT INFORMATION OR PROCESSING INFORMATION DIFFERENTLY?

This article introduces the concept of spiritual intelligence in terms of a natural human ability to take a different perspective on reality rather than an extraordinary ability to engage with a different/supernatural reality. From a cognitive perspective, spiritual intelligence entails a re-balancing of the two main modes of human cognition, with a prioritization of the holistic-intuitive mind over the conceptual one. From the psychological and phenomenological perspectives, it involves a different kind of engagement with information: slower, more participatory, less objectifying, and not focused entirely on problem solving. The article ends with a reflection on the theological implications of the proposed model and how such an account of spiritual intelligence as knowing differently might relate to theological anthropology and the theology of the spirit and the spiritual.