Robert E. Cole

Secular change in degree of assortative mating for ability

An examination of published studies of assortative mating indicates that there may have been a secular change in degree of assortative mating, with more recent studies showing a decrease in homogamy.

Generational differences in spouse similarity in education attainment

A lesser degree of assortative mating for educational attainment is reported for parents than for maternal and paternal grandparents of the three major raciallethnic groups (persons of Chinese, European, and Japanese ancestries) who took part in the Hawaii Family Study of Cognition. Differences across generations are significant for persons of European and of Japanese ancestries but not for persons of Chinese ancestry. The data support the belief that there has been a secular change toward decreased homogamy.

Stereo TV Improves Operator Performance Under Degraded Visibility Conditions

The research reported here was initially stimulated by a contradiction in the literature that suggested there was no significant performance advantage for manipulator operators employing stereo versus conventional TV systems, while typical direct-viewed results indicated that binocular performance is always superior to monocular performance in tasks requiring depth judgement or distance estimation. This paper presents an analysis of the interaction of several important variables involved in visual display research, with particular reference to our own research comparing mono and stereo TV displays in simulated underwater environments. Three experiments were conducted in our lab to assess the impact of degraded visibility on remote manipulator operator performance using either mono or stereo TV. Subjects were required to perform tasks which differed markedly in the number and type of depth cues available. As predicted, the results indicated that stereo performance was superior to mono under most conditions tested; however, the amount of improvement was shown to be a complex function of visibility, task, and learning factors. Conclusions and recommendations for further research aimed at understanding the relative contributions of these and additional display factors are presented for discussion.

Hemispheric efficiency in middle and later adulthood.

Right and left hemisphere efficiency, as measured by dichotic memory for numbers, was assessed in a sample of older adults in Experiment I. Right hemisphere efficiency dropped off sharply with age, while left hemisphere efficiency did not show a significant decline. A second group of subjects was tested on a musical note recognition task in Experiment II. Regression analyses revealed significant age decrements in performance, regardless of ear/hemisphere involved. The writers suggested that the reported decline with age in spatial ability may result from an age related decline in right hemispheric functioning, even on tasks that are right hemisphere dominant. The lack of decline reported for verbal ability may be a consequence of the lack of decline in left hemisphere efficiency with regard to left hemisphere dominant tasks.

Personality attributes of males and females marrying within vs. Across racial/ethnic groups

As part of a larger study, Adjective Check List scores were obtained from 543 couples in Hawaii who had married within their own ethnic group and 83 who had not. Females who married across ethnic groups generally scored higher in one domain of personality (dominance) than did females who married within their own ethnic group. Males who married crossethnically also differed in dominance from those who did not, but in different directions in different ethnic groups. In the group that had the highest status (Caucasian) in the decades in which these subjects married, they were less dominant; in the other groups, to varying degrees, they were more dominant. In general, males and females in cross-ethnic matings were more similar in personality test scores than males and females who married within their own ethnic groups. Spouse correlations were generally positive but trivial in magnitude, with very little difference in personality between homogamous and heterogamous couples. The average difference in personality between those who married within and outside their own ethnic group was associated with the rarity of outmarriage for the sex and ethnic group concerned.

Research Issues Involved In Applying Stereoscopic Television To Remotely Operated Vehicles

This report provides a brief, general overview of an ongoing program of research at the Naval Ocean Systems Center (NOSC), Hawaii Laboratory, to assess the value of three-dimensional imagery for the control of remotely operated work systems. The effects of visibility conditions, learning, task demands, pseudo-movement parallax, hyperstereopsis, and isomorphic linkage of camera movements to operator head movements are discussed.

Stereo TV Improves Manipulator Performance

Six observers, experienced in telerobotic operations, were used across four replicated studies of remote performance of a simulated space station assembly task. An alignment/insertion task was performed with a remotely operated manipulator arm viewed either directly or through stereoscopic or monoscopic TV viewing systems. Target position, space light, and learning effects were also assessed by measures of task time and manipulator collisions. Performance with Stereo view was significantly superior to that with Mono in Experiments 1, 2, and 4. Its superiority fell below required significance levels in Experiment 3 due to of the accumulation of practice effects across the first two studies. Experiment 4, in which the left-right positions of manipulator arm and task element were reversed, reestablished the strong superiority of Stereo view over Mono. These results clearly show the superiority of Stereo TV over Mono viewing systems. They suggest that learning can also improve performance under Mono view when accompanied by Direct view and Stereo view experience, but such learning is specific to the perceptual and motor conditions that were present in practice. Space lighting was not significant in the two studies in which it was assessed.

Transposition with minimal errors during training trials

Abstract Twenty-six Ss were trained to respond to the larger of two stimulus squares under a procedure whereby the smaller, unrewarded stimulus was faded in, starting with a 2 10 - inch line and increasing in 30 equal increments until it was completed on the last training trial. One S verbalized the principle of “bigger than” in explaining her choice of the larger stimulus. Of the remaining 25 Ss, 18 completed the training series while making only one or less responses to the unrewarded stimulus. These Ss were divided into three groups and treated under the following schedule: Group I—immediate transposition test; Group II—15 additional training trials with both stimuli complete, followed by the transposition test; and Group III—30 additional training trials with both stimuli complete, followed by the transposition test. The seven Ss who made two or more errors on the original 30 fading-in trials made up a fourth group that was tested immediately after the training series. The Ss in all groups showed a significant tendency to transpose. The present results, like other findings cited herein, demonstrated certain conditions under which Spences theory of transposition does not appear to hold for human Ss.

RNA and actinomycin-D enhancement of learning in the carp

A total of 172 carp were tested in three experiments on a T-maze visual discrimination task. As compared to saline controls, carp given intracranial injections of either RNA or actinomycin-D made significantly more correct responses on a 24-hr. test. This effect may relate to the increased availability of nucleotides.

Operator Performance Using Conventional Or Stereo Video Displays

Three studies were conducted to evaluate operator performance with conventional and stereo display systems. The first two studies involved perceptual judgment tasks (a modified Howard-Dolman depth discrimination test and a test of stereopsis, using random dot Julesz patterns), while the third employed a perceptual-motor task requiring end-effector positioning and closure. This third task was designed to approximate the major compo-nents of undersea object recovery missions. In studies One and Two, two methods of displaying stereo information (Fresnel, Field Sequential) were compared. The results of Study One indicate that both of these display systems provide adequate information to enhance performance over that given with a conventional monocular display. Study Two indicates that thresholds of stereo viewing are comparable using the Fresnel system and the Field Sequential system. The data indicate no dif-ference in thresholds over those obtained directly without viewer aids. In Study Three a conventional display was compared with the Field Sequential system used in studies One and Two. The results indicate that the use of stereo cues reduces both response latency and errors significantly. An analysis of performance changes over repeated testing ses-sions indicates significant improvement on both variables. These effects, however, are nondifferential across display systems, and are probably related to the acquisition of manipulator-specific motor-skill learning.