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Harold M. Schroder, Michael J. Driver, Sigfried Streufert
"In overemphasizing the importance of the information a person learns, we pay considerably too little attention to the ways people learn to combine or use information for adaptive purposes."
"In this book, it is maintained that an adaptive orientation acts, first, like a set of filters - selecting certain kinds of information from the environment - and, second, like a program or set of rules which combines these items of information in specific ways."
JLJ - Yawnfull when discussing the indeterminate results of psychology experiments that only a psychology professor could understand. Occasionally useful, possibly a blip on the radar screens of academic interest in 1967, likely an x-ray into how psychology professors spend their time. These guys are driven, however, to understand how the human mind works, so their efforts have value when tying to program machines to play complex games of strategy. Read it if you have trouble falling asleep - or if you are working on a paper on computer chess...
Curious is the crude summation model of environmental effects which can be used as a heuristic guide. This feature played a role in early computer chess programs, but I don't recall ever reading anything which discussed why it was effective.
Curious and useful is the discussion of content variables and structural variables. This breakdown allows one to examine adaptive behavior in more detail. The human mind seems to process these kinds of information on a kind of autopilot. If we wish to automate a process of any kind, it seems to me the first step will be to make this kind of distinction when constructing heuristics which ultimately will process real-world information in an adaptive manner.
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p.3 In the rapidly expanding technology of our society, development and training have almost become synonymous with the acquisition of knowledge and skills. In overemphasizing the importance of the information a person learns, we pay considerably too little attention to the ways people learn to combine or use information for adaptive purposes.
p.4 two distinct classes of information are relevant to the understanding of adaptation. [JLJ - formatting below added for readability]
- "Content variables" provide information about the acquisition, direction, and magnitude of responses, attitudes, norms, needs, and so on. From this standpoint, we are interested in what and how much a person learns...
- "Structural variables" provide a metric for measuring the way a person combines information perceived from the outside world, as well as internally generated information, for adaptive purposes.
In this book, it is maintained that an adaptive orientation acts, first, like a set of filters - selecting certain kinds of information from the environment - and, second, like a program or set of rules which combines these items of information in specific ways. The first aspect is the component or content variable, and the second aspect is the structural or information-processing variable.
p.5 Compared to that to lower animals, human "thought" is characterized by the generation of more alternatives. More meanings can be attributed to objects, and a greater number of connections (relations) between these meanings arise. In this way, human thought is less stimulus bound; action can be delayed; a given stimulus gives rise to a greater number of outcomes, creating more uncertainty and ambiguity.
p.6 But the main role of the computer is to store a large amount of information and handle it according to information-processing rules developed by programmers. In this sense, the computer, representing rapid, fixed program functioning, and man, representing the selective, heuristic postulator and theorizer, complement each other well in decision making.
p.9 Structural variables measure the nature of the relationship between a person and the objects in his world. Consequently, in any area... of the life space we can measure the level, or the integrative complexity, of the conceptual rules for processing information. In higher-order structures with more rules and interconnecting linkages, the individual has more ways to relate to persons and objects and to generate new aspects of relating... In a later chapter, we will show that higher levels of conceptual structure are associated with more flexible, adaptive orientations to stress and greater resistance to its various forms.
p.12 to the extent that the criterion of performance involves: [JLJ - formatting added for readability]
- (a) the perception of subtle environmental change,
- (b) the evolvement of new interconnected ways to solve problems, and
- (c) the consideration of many alternatives and of diverse information in decision making,
- and to the extent that the experimental situation is sufficiently interesting and complex to engage high-level information processing,
more integratively complex [JLJ - structural] groups should perform better.
p.13 Successful performance in most complex reactive task environments requires (a) sufficient performance skills and knowledge, (b) a near optimal level of interest or motivation, (c) adequate competence in interpersonal relations (since most complex task environments require group activity for decision-making purposes), and (d) the capacity to engage in complex information processing.
p.14- Now we will turn more explicitly to the identification of, and the operations for, various gradations (levels) of information processing in persons... Many gradations or structural levels could be described along the conceptual-complexity dimension; however, in the pages to follow, we will describe only four: low, moderately low, moderately high, and high integration indices. We would like to emphasize that these are merely points on a somewhat continuous dimension which have been selected solely for purposes of communication...
p.22-23 In a very loose sense, and by analogy, the difference between moderately high and high levels may be described as the difference between an empirical and a theoretical outlook... Unlike the low level, which consists of a hierarchical set of established rues and procedures, high-level functioning... is characterized by the ability to generate the rules of the theory, the complex relations and alternate schemata, as well as the relationships between the various structures. It has the potential to generate alternate patterns of complex interactions... This very abstract orientation should be highly effective in adapting to a complex, changing situation.
p.34 According to Hebb (1955), any sensory event has two effects: (a) an arousing function that is closely related to Hull's "general drive" (D), and (b) a cue function that serves to guide behavior... According to Hebb, directionality of behavior is determined by arousal level; drive induction is reinforcing at suboptimal arousal levels and drive reduction is reinforcing at superoptimal levels.
p.37 In our view, all three aspects of the environment (complexity, noxity, and eucity) interact and affect structure simultaneously... The precise relation between environmental parameters ("dimensions") remains to be formulated. For heuristic purposes, perhaps a crude summation model will be sufficient.
p.38-39 The simple additive model is, at present, only a convenient device for emphasizing the continuous interaction of three separate input dimensions. Its value is that it allows rough descriptions of environmental relations in a simple and comprehensible fashion suited to our current (and rough) measures of input. The model masks many problems... There is the basic question of whether simple addition always satisfactorily expresses the relation between dimensions... Our "solution" is to retain the additive model as a guide.
p.61 In summary, it appears that increasing environmental complexity and load has the effect of first increasing the degree of flexibility of integration involved in decision making to an optimal peak, then causing it to diminish as "overload" occurs. This effect is found for all measures of integration in decision making.
p.98-99 The INS data (Figure 7.2) suggest that perceptual tracking structures rise to maximal levels most rapidly. The system tries to comprehend as much as it can of the informationally "expanding universe." But when perception reaches a peak, a new mechanism comes into action. As load continues to climb, higher-order structures go into action. These second-line structures raise normal perception to a temporary, maximally integrated, level. Chapman, Kennedy, Newell, and Biel (1962) noted in their air-defense-system data that at a certain point, special short cuts (integrations) occur in perception. In this sense, perceptions may be raised to still higher (more abstract) planes, by the activation of perceptual "integrators." At this point, decision-making and other second-line structures are coming toward optimal levels.
p.102 In the foregoing section, we have presented evidence in favor of our basic hypothesis that there is an optimal input level for abstractness in conceptual (and group) structure.
p.105 Here again, we do not know. Emotion may be the mechanism that reduces complexity. [JLJ - It seems to me that emotion is a simple way to trigger different cognitive modes to operate. The human person needs to be able to automatically switch into different modes of operating, in certain critical environmental situations, and emotion can be a quick and efficient trigger.]
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