Skip to main content

Currently Skimming:

1 Introduction
Pages 3-14

The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.


From page 3...
... The objectives of the committee's study are to provide an authoritative assessment of these questions for policymakers in research and development who are consumers of the techniques, as well as to consider their possible applications to Army training. Many of the techniques under consideration grew out of the human potential movement of the 1960s, including guided imagery, meditation, biofeedback, neurolinguistic programming, sleep learning, accelerated learning, split-brain learning, and various techniques to reduce stress and increase concentration.
From page 4...
... Advocates focus on relating the techniques to specific tasks, such as marksmanship, foreign language acquisition, fine motor skills, sleep inducement, and even combat effectiveness. Some techniques are in fact rooted in a scientific literature.
From page 5...
... The importance of the human element in combat is recognized in the Army Science Board's 1983 report "Emerging Concepts in Human Technology," which phrases the issue in terms of high yield at relatively low investment. Human capital is considered to be the best potential source for growth in Army effectiveness, both in terms of return on investment and as a moral imperative "if we are to commit our soldiers to fight outnumbered and win." The technologies singled out in the report are those that can improve creativity and innovation, learning and training, motivation and cohesion, leadership and management, individual, crew, and unit fitness, soldier-machine interface, and the general productivity of the Army's human resources.
From page 6...
... Suggestive Accelerative Learning and Teaching Techniques (SALTT) is an approach to training that employs a combination of physical relaxation, mental concentration, guided imagery, suggestive principles, and baroque music with the intent of improving classroom performance.
From page 7...
... Stated applications are in the areas of language learning, stress management, reading skills, and creativity and problem solving. Claims of effectiveness stated in the Monroe Institute's brochure are wide-ranging, covering education (e.g., "77.8 percent of a class reported improvement in mental-motor skills'')
From page 8...
... Some techniques have received the attention of the scientific community, and evidence is available to be used as criteria in such areas as biofeedback, guided imagery, sleep learning, cohesion, and even for some aspects of psychic phenomena and neurolinguistic programming. The literature has alerted us, for example, to the distinction between the effects of biofeedback on fine motor skills and on stress, to the different effects of mental and physical rehearsal, to placebo and Hawthorne effects in stress research, to the priming and repetition effects of material presented during sleep, to some dysfunctions of group cohesion, to the difficulties of replicating experiments on extrasensory perception, and to the implausibility of specialized sensory modalities as postulated by NLP (see Appendix D for key terms)
From page 9...
... Some examples of empirical issues are practice effects (differences due to distributed versus massed practice, long versus short rest periods, short versus long sessions) , the whole-part problem (differences due to learning a task as a whole versus learning it by its constituent elements)
From page 10...
... of the 1980s pay little attention to issues of causality and intrinsic motivation, preferring instead to dwell on single dimensions of treatments or to offer a mixed package constructed in arbitrary ways and producing diffuse effects that reflect the experience. The issue of expected benefits from techniques provides a bridge between research and application.
From page 11...
... AnO~ner is a general lack of strong research designs to provide evidence of effects. These problems are considered also in the context of specific techniques discussed in the chapters of Parts II and III.
From page 12...
... At another extreme, the problem is one of educating the researchers in nuance, context, and a clinical approach that emphasizes adapting techniques to changed situations and client tastes. The result is a gap in communication epitomized by two cultures scientists searching for evidence and practitioners seeking effects and cures.
From page 13...
... A similar problem exists with respect to developing taxonomies in broadly defined fields: there is little agreement on a set of categories for the fields of human learning, performance, motivation, perception, and social and organizational processes. More mature subdisciplines provide an empirical basis for taxonomies, allowing for more tightly constructed systems of tasks and situations: for example, rote learning, short-term memory, concept learning, problem solving, work motivation, and team functions (see Fleishman and Quaintance, 19841.
From page 14...
... 4 ENHANCING [I UMA N PERFORMA NCE These themes are woven throughout the discussions of specific techniques. Each chapter discusses relevant literature, describes the specific techniques, points to directions for further research when appropriate, and notes possible applications in military and industrial settings.


This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More information on Chapter Skim is available.