PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE ‘ Enhancing Human Performance The committee reviewed individual and intrapsychic approaches to stress reduction, including arousal reduc- tion (relaxation training and biofeedback), cognitive re- structuring and problem solving, and behavioral skills training. Regarding biofeedback, on which a conclusion was specifically requested of the committee, it was found that although biofeedback can achieve a reduction of muscle tension, it does not reduce stress effectively. Committee members’ appreciation of military stress was enhanced by a visit to Fort Benning, Georgia, where they viewed paratroop training (and arranged, and then mercifully aborted, an opportunity for David Goslin to make a jump). They saw Bradley vehicles maneuvering under fire and then rode in one. They also heard a pre- sentation and viewed a videotape on the extraordinarily demanding and stressful procedures of Ranger training, which centers on several weeks of long daily marches over difficult and hazardous terrains under severe envi- ronmental conditions. Influence Strategies The committee’s treatment of strategies of social in- fluence centered on neurolinguistic programming (NLP). NLP’s wide use in the army was described by army rep- resentative Robert Klaus in two briefings; a background paper by Pruitt, Crocker, and Hanes was recruited by the committee (footnote 2); and Singer, Davison, Mobley, and Druckmann attended a workshop on NLP techniques and interviewed Richard Bandler, one of the developers of NLP. The conclusion was that little if any evidence exists either to support NLP’s assumptions or to indicate that it is effective as a strategy for social influence. NLP has also been used as a means to model expert performance and the committee’s visit to Fort Benning included a review of a test of this aspect of NLP as ap- plied to marksmanship. Though the committee could find only one evaluation of NLP as a model of expert perfor- mance, and found that one wanting, it did conclude that the investigation of expert models constitutes a worth- while activity for the army, and the continuing committee plans to pursue that topic. Group Cohesion The army is quite committed to developing group co- hesion. Its current COHORT system of keeping units intact is motivated by the desire to enhance group per- formance by increasing group cohesion. The chair of the committee’s resource advisory group, Lieutenant Gen- eral Robert M. Elton, and the commander of the Army Research Institute, Colonel William Darryl Henderson, have written in support of it (Elton, 1984; Henderson, 1985). A technical report from the Walter Reed Army Institute for Research points out that civilian scholars as well as senior military officers accept that cohesion in- 90 hibits breakdown, without regard to the research ¢o,_ munity’s ability to demonstrate relationships (‘“The Ney’ Manning System Field Evaluation,’’ 1986, No. 3, p.y Peters and Waterman’s In Search of Excellence (193), may represent civilian scholars in this regard, and indgg the research community has been supportive to a degry, (e.g., Campbell, 1975; Katz & Kahn, 1966). The committee, however, believed that the argumen, in favor ought to be treated as hypotheses rather tha, conclusions, citing difficulties in separating CONge, quences and indicators of cohesion, the gap between in, proved cohesion and better unit performance, the tg, dency to rely on single-factor explanations of gro, performance, and the possibility of reciprocal effects be. tween cohesion and performance. The current EVideng, makes it necessary for organizations seeking to benef; from cohesion to proceed largely on faith; the COMMitte, referred to some possible negative consequences of oo, hesion as reviewed by Porter, Lawler, and Hackma, (1975): ineffective handling of deviance, “‘group think» increased impact of any existing negative norms, any increased intergroup conflict. The committee also di, cussed issues of implementation that it saw as havi received little attention. A background paper by Tan; and Kunda (footnote 2) developed implications from th cultural perspective advanced by Schein (1985). Parapsychology The subcommittee on parapsychology made its prin. cipal site visits to the laboratories of Robert Jahn a Princeton University and Helmut Schmidt in San Anto. nio to discuss experiments on the psychokinetic contro) of random event generators. Experiments on remot viewing were also discussed at Princeton. Hyman and Humphreys were joined on both visits by Dr. Paul Hor. witz, a consultant to the committee and a physicist a Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., who had organized a 1979 symposium on ‘*Physics and Parapsychology” for the American Physical Society that included as speakers Helmut Schmidt and Ray Hyman. Also visiting Professor Jahn were Druckman, Lawrence, and Paul Holland, ther a member of the committee. Hyman visited Edward May at the Stanford Research Institute to discuss experiments: on random event generators and remote viewing. Hyman and Horwitz were briefed by representatives of the U.S. Army Laboratory Command on parapsychology and mil itary intelligence; Druckman and Swets were briefed 01 Soviet parapsychology by representatives of the Amy Foreign Science and Technology Center and the Defense ? Intelligence Agency. In connection with a meeting heldin San Diego, the entire committee, kindly accompanied by local psychology professors George Mandler and Willian. McGill, visited the laboratory of Cleve Backster who sig : Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00789R002260640001mMARCH hi. time aD e con ation st Visit how su event 2! device | ject tric ode, § number conditi« modes: Horwtt. ference . random a mech: (a digiti istic an could “ noise S¢ falling ¢ VOL. 1,
= t j~} @ [=] Lona 7) seman cet ee | ae ae — neces nea stenrentnecee, a > n Peo Un PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE ts that the electrical activity of a preparation of leu- | erste taken from the mouth of a human subject re- | 5? cand in a different place. For this visit, the promise to jim committee, not fulfilled, was an observable demon- the tion of anomalous events. '$ Visitors to Professor Jahn’s laboratory were shown w subjects sit in front of one of three kinds of random Ont generators and attempt to affect the behavior of the ice in one of three ways: In the PK + mode, the sub- it io tries to get a higher than chance level of hits; in PK — ee te. a lower than chance level; and in baseline mode, a . mnber of hits equal to the chance level. Under volitional : m ditions, the subject is free to select among the three des: under instructed conditions, he or she is not. HorwitZ observed that the investigators reported no dif- - ferences in results occasioned by a transition from a true random event generator (an analogue electronic device or 4 mechanical device) to a pseudorandom event generator (a digital, programmed device) that is actually determin- istic and nonrandom. They believed that their subjects could will changes in a voltage or voltage threshold of a noise source or changes in the trajectories of small balls falling down a chute with multiple obstacles and, equally eae TT Cine me, gmat phreys, Thompson, Springer, and Singer. onds to the emotional states of the subject, at a later The only photograph of committee activities was taken at the February 1986 San Diego meeting. From left to right: Davison, Bjork, Posner, Hyman, Schneider, | wh nX0.2 Kevsfoved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00789R002200640001-7 ~~ Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-U07S9ROO22006 R002: DOGTEOE ‘ ae " n Bjork EE well, changes in certain bits (from zeros to ones or vice versa) of predetermined and otherwise completely repro- ducible- sequences as generated by an array of shift reg- isters. At his Mind Science Foundation in San Antonio, Dr. Schmidt described an experiment designed to permit a skeptical group of scientists to apply adequate controls to a psychokinesis experiment without destroying the psy- chological environment for a subject that is said by psi researchers to be critical for obtaining positive results. Both groups use a piece of data not yet available (e.g., specified weather data from the New York Times at some agreed upon future date) as a pointer into a given table of random numbers, which will generate “‘seed numbers’’ to a pseudorandom number generator and hence produce a predetermined sequence of ones and zeros. Both groups follow a set procedure to assign PK + and PK — modes to the seed numbers and thereby instructions for the sub- ject. An agreement made during the site visit to conduct a joint experiment with Dr. Horwitz as participant, which would be monitored by the committee, was not followed up by Dr. Schmidt. The committee benefited from a review of the litera- ture on remote viewing and random event generators pre- Swets, Landers, Mobley, Porter, Druckman, Hum- 91