‘ansfer. etween al con- correct in what hat the connec- It set nies as id what > to dif- dures it ms and ontinue hat ap- unation iniqucs ges pro- tee Was anhanc- rces for nmiittee rar gec- a book entitled es, and second ! COPIES a press Swets, ting the ry some atement qary ar- _ 1987). hington Tillette, iy other es were » News Report 8), Psy- ‘Higher d Tech- s News uthored | papers. | CNN, NN ore- | CH 1990 || mind his plans to sponsor_a bill to create a commission Approved For Release 2000/08708:C1ASRDP9600789R002200650001-6 rT ns pce OO SS played small segments for a few days. NBC's camera did not operate properly so Tom Brokaw’s evening news iused file footage representing some of the Army's more lurid past interests, for example. in walking through walls, and he commented in kind, Nationa! Public Radio presented for a few days an tnterview with Robert Bjork on learning techniques. PUBLIC REACTION The committee's book was reviewed descriptively un- der the heading ‘‘Briefly Noted’ by Sheldon Zedeck (1988) in Contemporary Psychology. It was reviewed ex- tonsively by Philip Morrison (1988) in Scienrifie Amert- can. We appreciated his summary: “‘Among the most difficult lessons in science is how not to deceive yourself. This patient and judicious overview offers genuine help’ ip. 109). Irwin Child (1988), in a review for Chaice, com- plimented the exposition of general principles of evalua- lion but noted what he called the report's “bias against exploration of apparent anomalies not yet well attested” (p. 536). Kendrick Frazier (1988) reviewed the book ex- tensively for the Skeptical Inquirer, with emphasis on paranormal phenomena. Druckman and Swets reccived several phone calls and letters, many of them complimentary (wanting more in- formation and making suggestions), for example, from the Los Angeles Police Department. and many of them expressing concern over negative treatment of particular ltechniques. in an interchange of several Ietiers, Wilse Webb argued that we had been too generous to one tech- nique, that sleep learning was not worth a “second look.” aents of the paranormal and these tended to be in letters addressed to Frank Press, Chairman of the National Re- search Council. Robert Jahn, former Dean of Princeton's School of Engineering and Applied Science, wrote that a biased committee made factual errors in reviewing his experiments on mental biasing of random number gener- ators, A copy from Jahn to Senator Claiborne Pell was followed by a letter from Pell to Press. The senator was concerned, among other things, about the possible im- pact of the committee's report on the National Science Foundation. which was said to be reconsidering support of parapsychological research, and he no doubt had in 10, stud Sycholtogy and othe ormanceé- hancement techniques, a bill co-sponsored by Senators Gore and Kassebaum and now in committee (e.g,, News- week, June 26, 1989, p. 8). Not satisfied by the comme ee jes ‘s letter éil car- John A. Swets and Robert A. Bjork sert itself in this argument and that failing direct resolu- tion with the NRC, resolution could be pursued through scientific forums and journals. The President of the Parapsychological Association, Inc.. Richard S. Broughton, alsa wrate to chairman | Press. emphasizing what he and his associates saw as ; bias in the selection of the committee and an attempt by | the committee's chair to suppress a positive evaluation of a set of parapsychology studies. Upan what it considered an inadequate response from the NRC, the association published a lengthy report as a ‘Reply to the National | Research Council Study on Parapsychology.’ That reply was reviewed in the The Chronicle of Higher Education (Wheeler, 1988) and in Qnini magazine (Huyghe, 1989), Similarly, R.A. McConnell of the University of Pitts- burgh wrote Druckman and Swets and then mailed ex- tensively a set of his materials, including his correspon- dence with the NRC and an earlier article by him. | Colone! John Alexander (Ret.), one of the briefers at the committee's first meeting, challenged the validity of its report in the periodical New Realities (Alexander, 1989), We should add that the NRC’S executive office consis- The strongest reactions came as expected from propo- | | mittee’s report and the interest of field leaders increased. ried their case to the undersecretary of the army, who responded that it would be improper for the\army to in- | VOL. 1. NO. 2, MARCH [940 Approved For Release 2000/08/0 | keep his adverse reaction separate from that of the Parapsychological tently supported the committee's conclusions (and, we understand, put off a potential donor as a result).* THE ARMY’S REACTION Army leadership was intially concerned about the , early publicity, primarily the negative treatment by NBC News. Concern was expressed to and within the army by advocates of specific techniques that had received nega- : tive evaluations. Field leaders at first showed limited in- terest, largely through calls by users or opponents of specific techniques. As lime went on, the army received | favorable comments from several sources about the com- | One apparently influential event was Druckman’s brief- ing of the army's Human Factors Technical Group in May 1988; another was the favorable mention of the re- port in the chief of staff's monthly newsletter. in September 1988, Bjork, Druckman, Johnson, and Swets went to General Thurman's headquarters at Fort | Monroe, Virginia, to brief fim an the study and to pro- 5, Colane! Alexander, who co-hosted the committee at Cleve Back- ster’s laboratory test of the emotional response of Posner's leukocytes, wrote that the committee denigrated such scientific research by men- Goning also the scientifically unsupported ideas of psychic warfare and psychotronic weapons. Meanwhile, R.A. McConnell wrote that the committee's mention of Backster’s research was an attempt to taint legitimace research on parapsychology. We noticed thal the Parapsy- chological Association, Inc., did not collaborate with McConnell in tts complaint about the committee's report and that Robert Jahn chose to Association, Inc. 93 : CIA-RDP96-00789R002200650001-6 Oe
stice, re- or skills , and re- ns of re- ng quisition ing later ‘estricted ancies in ynmental Bjork & 1, 1988). gy to en- implica- h the ac- rforming here are (such as :@ motor stor pro- trategies that are aphysio- eart-rale 2 €xecur ery) are personal :sted by rogram- jevelap- jegative in the it's be- arch on uw years indation 1, com- ce have rts psy- fes variety » earlier tCH 19%) | pproved For Release 2000/08/08: GiteRDP96-067 89R002200650001-6 John A. Swets and Robert A. Bjor discussion of learning during sleep) that seem scnsitive lo | types of learning without awareness (‘data-driven 'processing’’), there is renewed interest in subliminal learning (e.g., Jacoby & Whitchouse, in press; Marcel, 1983). While such results suggest a new look at the sub- jiminal-learning issue, 4 large variety of subliminal tapes designed to alter attitudes, enhance confidence, reduce | anxieties, and so forth, have had striking success in the marketplace. | Manipulating mental, emotional, and arousal states A draft review of the liferature on techniques to change mental states. commissioned by ARI and pre- pared by J. Brener and S.R Connally, was reviewed by | Druckman and Posner for implications for task perfor- “mance. Research developments in various fields, includ- ing health psychology, suggest that altered states of consciousness may affect a variety of physiological pro- cesses, The converse may be true as well; recent work suggests that mood states may be altered by influences on bloodflow that are a consequence of the differing facial muscular patterns corresponding to various emotional expressions (Zajonc, Murphy, & Inglehart, 1989). ARI, motivated by the problem of detecting deception (Hy- man. 1989), has urged the committee to consider also the physical manifestations of mental and emotional states. Career development A class of techniques designed to improve perfor-_| mance through increased self-insight is widely used in™ swers (a these und a number of related questions, but the issues are important enough to army functioning 10 be addressed. if only to clarify the questions and to outline needed reseurch. CONCLUSION Although other arrangements might be workable, we found that the National Research Council provides an ideal setting for a study of this sort. The Council was designed expressly for the purpose, first under the span- sorship of the National Academy of Science and now administered as well by the National Academy of Engi- i neering and the Institute of Medicine. The NAS was chartered by Conuress in 1863; the NRC was established in 1916. Among the NRC’s strengths are that it spans the scientific and professional disciplines: 1 benefits from the prestige of its governing academies; it provides in com- petent fushion the services required by committee func- .tions and it follows guidelines to promote thorough and objective reports, including procedures for proposal and report review, Commitiee members are suggested by broadly bused advisers, proposed by a commission's staff and executive director working with the committee's chairperson, nominated by the commission, and ap- . pointed by the NRC's chairperson in the interests of com- | petence, relevance, and diversity of viewpoints Theyre, | asked ta verify that they have no conflict of interest and they serve without financial compensation. _ "Members of the committee generally regarded their public and privale organizations: included are assess- ment batteries designed (o facilitate leadership, interper- sonal influence skills, team building, and decision mak- ing. Specific examples are the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (Myers & McCaulley, 1985), the Managerial Grid (Blake & Mouton. 1964}, and the Social Styles Pro- file (Merrill & Reid, 1981). These techniques have con- siderable appeal (0 trainers as well as to the trainees be- cause of high ‘‘face validity. ‘but they have been subject to little rigorous research, To help define the questions. the committee commissioned Paul Thayer to write a crit- ical review of the relevant literature, Part-whole methods to enhance group processes At its first meeting the continuing committee became convinced that certain issues of group performance de- served study. Should the members of a working group be trained as a team or individually? If team training facili- tates initial performance, is that advantage offset by greater disruption when original members of the team need to be replaced by new members? Should the indi- viduals in a group be trained in only their task, or should there be backup training to increase the flexibility of the )tproup? Current research may not supply definitive an- VOL. 1, NO. 2, MARCH 19%) task as challenging and they demonstrated consistently draft sections of the report nearly on time, and achieved consensus in an advised, efficient, and congenial way. They feel that their training and experience were ade- ; quate to the task and they are pleased to recommend the The continuing commitice can reasonably anticipate that it will contribute more by steering the army toward prom- less by saving the Army from investing in ineffective some specific enhancement projects undertaken tn the army, A long-term, successful impact. of the committee's | of the human-potential movement in the minds of the citizenry. as evidenced by its marketplace popularity, techniques are aiso apparently making substantial in- roads on the more than $30 billion a year that the Amer: ican Society for Training and Development estimates to be spent on.formal courses in industry (Wall Street Jour- 95 Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R002200650001-6 that it was engaging. They came to the meetings almost | withoul exception, made site visits willingly, submitted | process to psychologists and scientists in related fields. | ising new ways to enhance training and performance and | techniques. It will likely also serve an advisory role for | work, in both of its phases, ts hardly assured. The power | dwarfs the force of mainstream psychology. New Age ;