Untrained Observers Research Articles

MEASURING AND INCREASING THE HAPPINESS OF PEOPLE WITH PROFOUND MENTAL RETARDATION AND PHYSICAL HANDICAPS

Applied research in mental retardation has focused on skill training and education to the relative neglect of measuring and increasing happiness in the lives of people with mental retardation. Here we report the results of four preliminary studies that were conducted to develop and demonstrate methodologies for measuring happiness in people with profound mental retardation and other severe handicaps. These results suggest that: (1) facial expressions can provide a valid measure of happiness, and can be measured reliably by relatively untrained observers; (2) the rate of spontaneous smiling is highly variable across individuals; (3) some individuals’ happiness can be increased dramatically by very simple social interactions; and (4) clients’ differential emotional reactions to various caregivers may be useful in tracking the development of social relationships. Suggestions for future research include systematic replication of these preliminary findings with a larger number and variety of subjects, and demonstration of how these measures can be applied to quality assurance systems.

Ball Lightning: What Nature is Trying to Tell the Plasma Research Community

Ball lightning has been extensively observed in atmospheric air, usually in association with thunderstorms, by untrained observers who were not in a position to make careful observations. These cha...

Trauma centers: Radiologists’ role

w hile in Denver on vacation this past summer , I took note of the newspaper coverage given to drive-by shootings and other acts o f apparently random violence; the local editorials discussed how to stop them. Even the Governor held a special session with experts to develop strategies to deal with the violence and its aftermath. One editorial especially caught nay eye: "Denver is lucky to have three trauma care inst i tut ions"-for it properly focused on the excellent care that level I trauma centers provide. It even gave some specific examples o f lives recently saved in these trauma centers. But how many did they say again? Three? Perhaps Denver has a corner on the market for level I trauma centers, and perhaps if you live in any of the 70 or so metropolitan centers in the United States, you, too, believe that your city has multiple level I tramna centers. (For awhile, I was under the mistaken impression that there were five such trauma centers in Columbus, Ohio, as well; in fact, there are t h r e e O h i o State University, Childrens, and Grant Hospitals have designation f r o m t h e American College o f Surgeons (ACS) as level I trauma centers.) The National Academy of Sciences/ National Research Council originally proposed that emergency facilities be categorized based on the institutional ability to deal with the broad spectrum of trauma; the article was entitled "Accidental Death and Disability: The Neglected Disease o f Modern Society" (1966). Since 1976, the A m e r i c a n College o f Surgeons has published, and repeatedly updated, a document from its Commit tee on Trauma proposing a national ne twork of trauma centers. This network would consist o f level I (regional resource centers), level II (comnmnity trauma centers), and level III (rural health centers). Yet, even in 1994, realization o f the network has not occurred. The number o f verified centers are: level I, <100; level II, 75-100; and level III, <20. Why? Well, for starters, the level I designation is difficult to obtain, because site visits, p roof o f specialists, many o f t hem not only on call but in-house at all times, and peripheral centers for burn treatment, head and spinal cord injury, and rehabilitation centers (to mention some of the many requirements) are expensive to maintain and require vast resources. Designation is supposed to be a cooperative venture among hospitals in the city, and the injured are to be transported to the appropriate center even though that means bypassing the closest hospital. Such cooperation is frequently difficult to obta in w h e n hospitals see themselves as competitors. The ACS believed that only a few level I centers would be needed; the majority o f centers were envisioned by the ACS as level II. But wi th even fewer level II centers, we must search for other reasons; some clearly are political. In addition, who, after all, likes to be labeled #2? In some regions, hospitals may follow state or county guidelines, where they exist, for trauma level des ignat ion. W h e r e these guidelines are not followed, the hospital may simply designate itself a level I trauma center! I suggest you investigate in your area which hospitals call themselves level I trauma centers, and which of those have met the rigorous criteria as applied by the ACS and your state o r county. The criteria for radiologists' availability in the ACS trauma centers are vague; yet, we can and ottght to play a major role. Our prompt diagnoses in the emergency setting--as radiologists all k n o w c a n n o t be m a t c h e d by untrained observers who only know radiology as a sideline. To be a major player, we must be on site w h e n most trauma cases arrive. Radiologists who abdicate their positions will surely lose them to those who hustle in the Emergency Department.

Use of modern infrared thermography for wildlife population surveys

A commercially available thermal-infrared scanning system was used to survey populations of several wildlife species. The system's ability to detect species of different sizes in varying habitats relative to conventional survey methods, to differentiate between species in the same habitat, and the influence of environtmental factors on operational aspects of employing this technology in the field were evaluated. Total costs for the surveys were approximately $0.36/ha. There were marked discrepancies in the counts of untrained observers and those from trained analysis. Computer-assisted analysis of infrared imagery recorded 52% fewer deer than were estimated from drive counts, and densities of moose were five times those estimated from conventional aerial methods. By flying concentric circles and using telephoto, detailed counts of turkeys and deer were possible. With the aid of computer-assisted analysis, infrared thermography may become a useful wildlife population survey tool. More research is needed to verify the actual efficiency of detection by combining aerial scans with ground truthing for a variely of species and habitals.

Neurophysiological correlates of perceptual learning in the human brain.

Rapid learning processes are crucial for human object recognition. We report here on the alterations in neurophysiological activity in the human brain induced by repeated presentation of visual stimuli. In psychophysical experiments the percentage of correct responses increased significantly within less than 30 minutes in untrained observers. This stimulus-specific improvement was not carried over to differently oriented stimuli. Similar learning effects were observed in component latencies of evoked potential field distributions. The occurrence of specific potential field configurations reflected perceptual learning. A spatio-temporal activation pattern with steep gradients over the primary visual cortex appeared to be correlated with plasticity in the human visual system.

The decline of a brown bear Ursus arctos L. population in central South Norway

The brown bear Ursus arctos L. was studied in the Vassfaret area of Norway for the 40-year period 1949–1988. More than 800 bear reports, mostly from untrained observers, were analysed, critically evaluated and 35 verified as true. During the whole period there was a clear concentration of observations in a core area of about 1300 km2 and a less dense and more patchy occurrence in the surrounding area of about 25 000 km2. Reproduction was unconfirmed, as no observations of females with cubs or young could be verified. Results from tracking and other special studies suggested that the population consisted of only a few individuals. A tracking study during 1970–1972 showed at least one bear to be present, but a similar study in 1991 found none. There was a clear tendency of a decline, probably caused by heavy hunting before the study, and habitat deterioration by human intrusion during the study period.

Accuracy of Goldmann tonometry in clinical practice

The intra- and inter-observer variability of Goldmann applanation tonometry was studied in 8 hospital tonometrists, 4 of whom received brief revision training in tonometer use. Intraocular pressure (IOP) measurements were obtained from 16 glaucoma patients. Over a series of four readings taken from individual eyes, intraocular pressure did not significantly vary. However, a decline in IOP was observed when a second tonometrist obtained a further series of four readings from a previously measured eye. Mean pressures recorded by tonometrists who had received revision training were greater than those obtained by the untrained observers though this could be accounted for by two highly experienced individuals in the untrained group who tended to record low pressures. Comparisons of average readings obtained by two observers on the same eye showed that approximately one-quarter of measurements differed by 2 or more mmHg and approximately one-fifth by 3 or more mmHg.

The Jebel al-Akhdar (Oman)

talus slopes are mostly used for the same purpose, except for the terminus of these falaj, where open canals tend to emerge. Dates, vegetables, grains, and fodder crops are the produce of agriculture at these lower elevations in this hot, arid country. The higher parts of the Jebel al-Akhdar, usually above 1,800 meters elevation, have significantly lower temperatures; on the plateaus, lows of -10? C have been observed in winter, and summer temperatures average in the 20? C range. Precipitation falls primarily in winter, but no systematic records have yet been collected. Reports of snow lying on the ground appear exaggerated. Seepage from canals or aquifers may freeze occasionally, and that was erroneously assumed by distant, untrained observers to be snow. In this cool, relatively humid climate, temperate-zone vegetables and fruit trees have been grown since time immemorial and were later followed by alfalfa as fodder for the few local dairy cattle. A specialty crop was roses, the petals of which were distilled to produce rose water that in this century came to be used to flavor cigarettes. The distilleries were fueled by wood obtained from local dwarf oak trees, which probably gave the mountains their green appellation but whose cutting seriously increased deforestation. At lower elevations in wadis on the southern side, much wood was also removed to provide fuel at oil survey and drilling camps during the early days of petroleum exploration in the 1950s and 1960s. Camels and drivers were obtained from local bedouin tribes to carry the wood as well as the export products from the mountains on rough trails.

Assessing Knowledge Through Gesture: Using Children's Hands to Read Their Minds

Is the information that gesture provides about a child's understanding of a task accessible not only to experimenters who are trained in coding gesture but also to untrained observers? Twenty adults were asked to describe the reasoning of 12 different children, each videotaped responding to a Piagetian conservation task. Six of the children on the videotape produced gestures that conveyed the same information as their nonconserving spoken explanations, and 6 produced gestures that conveyed different information from their nonconserving spoken explanations. The adult observers displayed more uncertainty in their appraisals of children who produced different information in gesture and speech than in their appraisals of children who produced the same information in gesture and speech. Moreover, the adults were able to incorporate the information conveyed in the children's gestures into their own spoken appraisals of the children's reasoning. These data suggest that, even without training, adults form impress...

The British Aircraft Industry by Keith Hayward

380 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE collection of contemporary documents published in Britain by the Navy Records Society. These omissions do not much detract from this eloquent, useful, and most welcome survey. It is likely to become a favored textbook, and a point of departure for further research. Kennett never forgets that the first duty of a historian is to be interesting, and he peppers his analysis with lively detail. On the shortcomings of aerial reconnais­ sance by untrained observers, for example, he mentions the inexpe­ rienced German aircrew who reported that the men in a British post “were thoroughly disorganized and running about in blind panic” (p. 30). The Germans had flown over a group of Tommies playing soccer. David Omissi Dr. Omissi read history at the University of Lancaster, then moved to the Department of War Studies at King’s College, University of London, where he gained an M.A. and a Ph.D. Formerly a lecturer in history at the University of Edinburgh, he is now a Prize Research Fellow at Nuffield College, University of Oxford, working on a social and political history of the Indian Army. He is the author of Air Power and Colonial Control: The Royal Air Force, 1919—1939 (Manchester University Press, 1990). The British Aircraft Industry. By Keith Hayward. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press and St. Martin’s Press (distr.), 1989. Pp. xvi+ 221; tables, notes, index. $59.95. Keith Hayward’s work is the first in a series on British industry in the 20th century edited by Derek H. Aldcroft. In his introduction, the editor stresses imports and exports and employment but fails to note that international competition and linkages in technology and pro­ ductivity are key ingredients. This sets the tone for the book. Hayward, author of The Government and British Civil Aerospace (Manchester, 1983), tells a straightforward story of the evolution of the industry from its gentlemanly and shop-floor beginnings through its peaking in the four revolutions of 1935—45—the technological, the electronic, the jet, and the airfield. He concentrates on the development of airframes and engines, and this ultimately means that he focuses on Rolls-Royce and the British Aerospace Corporation. He duly notes how bad decisions were made after World War II when the industry tried desperately on the civil side to recover under the Brabazon Report proposals. He points correctly to the decision to take test pilots out of aircraft and to use rocket-powered models instead. Thus while the United States was struggling with its first not-verysatisfactoryjet aircraft, the British were largely limited to models. The British economy and the failure of the Treasury to grasp the new costing problems of modern aircraft coupled with the crash of the TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 381 Comet I’s helped push the industry down in the 1960s. But at the same time the necessary consolidation of the industry and the newer technological developments were moving ahead. So on the one hand there were cancellations of aircraft such as the TSR-2 and on the other the successes such as the Anglo-French Concorde, a technolog­ ical if not an economic success. If the decade of the 1960s was a nadir, with phased cancellation of the VC-10 family in the face of American competition that under­ stood that aircraft had to be made for all customers and not tailored to a captive market of the nationalized airlines, then success was about to return in other guises. By the end of the 1980s, aerospace was driving British technology—40 percent of it in electronics. Moreover, the United Kingdom was surviving as one of only three countries in the world that could boast a complete industry (the others being the United States and the USSR, although France would come close). Part of Hayward’s thesis is that international market forces have been constantly affected by state interference. The truth of this can be gleaned in the three volumes by Ian Lloyd on Rolls-Royce (1978) and in the studies of Arthur Reed, Britain's Aircraft Industry: What Went Right? What Went Wrong? (London, 1973), and of Daniel Todd and Jamie Simpson, The World...

The First Air War, 1914–1918 by Lee Kennett

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 379 The First Air War, 1914—1918. By Lee Kennett. New York: Free Press, 1991. Pp. xii + 275; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $24.95. During the Great War, the exploits of the early fighter “aces” excited popular imagination in a way the dismal trench slaughter never could. Immediately after the Armistice, former pilots discov­ ered a lucrative market for their memoirs, and a stream of popular writing of the “blazing skies” variety has flowed steadily since. Lee Kennett’s admirable survey of the Great War in the air is a deliberate and stylish rejection of this kind of sensationalism. In a series of coolly analytical chapters, sensibly organized around major themes, he shoots down in flames one obsolete myth after another. Basing his conclusions on a wide variety of published sources— English, French, Italian, German, and Russian (summarized in a useful bibliographical essay)—Kennett shows that reconnaissance remained the prime purpose of all air services during the war. Fighters were used mainly to protect friendly observation airplanes (and balloons) and to deny airspace to those of the enemy. Kennett lucidly discusses the emergence of aerial interdiction, and he carefully measures the small-scale strategic bombing offensives, which usually occupy a place in the literature out of all proportion to their contemporary effect. Kennett supplies some tantalizing details about the social history of the new technology. He shows that most aircrew were not upper-class former cavalry officers, whom trench stalemate had thrown out of work, but were from a variety of social and military backgrounds. This, combined with the close-knit life of the squadron, encouraged an informality in dress and speech that would have been unthinkable in a cavalry regiment—the use by French ranks of the tu form to address their pilot officers being only one telling example. Kennett is at his sensitive best when he examines attitudes to the emergent technology of destruction, whether the periodic zeppelin scares that swept the British press, or the way in which airmen came to see themselves as a breed quite apart from their earthbound comrades. He also takes pains to exonerate the various high com­ mands from the charge of obstructive “blimpery” so often leveled at them by frustrated airmen; instead, he shows that the military leadership in most European states was only too willing to exploit the airplane but was merely more realistic about its possibilities than were the air fanatics. The book might have contained more on the processes of aircraft production and their effects on the course of the war and on social relations at home. Richard Overy’s volume on the Second World War is a possible model in this respect. Although Kennett has a chapter on maritime aviation, he does not refer in the bibliography or footnotes to Arthur Marder’s magisterial work on the Royal Navy in the Fisher era, to Geoffrey Till’s survey Air Power and the Royal Navy, or to the 380 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE collection of contemporary documents published in Britain by the Navy Records Society. These omissions do not much detract from this eloquent, useful, and most welcome survey. It is likely to become a favored textbook, and a point of departure for further research. Kennett never forgets that the first duty of a historian is to be interesting, and he peppers his analysis with lively detail. On the shortcomings of aerial reconnais­ sance by untrained observers, for example, he mentions the inexpe­ rienced German aircrew who reported that the men in a British post “were thoroughly disorganized and running about in blind panic” (p. 30). The Germans had flown over a group of Tommies playing soccer. David Omissi Dr. Omissi read history at the University of Lancaster, then moved to the Department of War Studies at King’s College, University of London, where he gained an M.A. and a Ph.D. Formerly a lecturer in history at the University of Edinburgh, he is now a Prize Research Fellow at Nuffield College, University of Oxford, working on a social and political history of the Indian Army. He is the author of Air Power and Colonial Control: The Royal Air Force, 1919...

Measurement of involved surface area in patients with psoriasis

Three methods of measuring the surface area of the involved skin were compared in 10 patients with psoriasis. Using the rule of nines, four untrained observers estimated the average extent of psoriasis as 20, 14, 23 and 33% of the body surface area. Measuring the area of tracings of plaque outlines using image analysis gave a mean involved surface area of 9% and image analysis of whole body photographs gave a mean value of 7%. We conclude that untrained observers using the rule of nines will overestimate the extent of psoriasis and that image analysis of whole body photographs is comparable to that of traced outlines.

Training observers to detect spontaneous deception: Effects of gender

A group of observers were trained to detect deception by instructing them to focus their attention on the reliable behavioral correlates of deception (message duration, response latency, pauses, nonfluencies, adaptors, and hand gestures) and away from unreliable behavioral correlates of deception (e.g., eye contact and leg/feet gestures). Trained observers also practiced detecting deception using this behavioral information. It was predicted that compared with untrained observers, trained observers would detect deception more accurately, but that this effect would be more pronounced for males. It also was predicted that the difference between observers' actual ability to detect deception and their confidence in the accuracy of their judgments would be smaller for trained than for untrained observers. Results were consistent with the first hypothesis; whereas the means were in the predicted direction for the second hypothesis but were not significantly different.

Mastery and Frequency of Managerial Behaviors Relative to Sub-unit Effectiveness

This research was undertaken in response to a review which called for a behavioral approach to the study of leadership. The subjects of the study were the managers of sub-units in a hospital. Eleven managerial behaviors were assessed using their subordinates as untrained observers, and behaviorally-anchored questionnaires. Effectiveness was assessed by industrial engineering measures of performance and employee attitude. The results indicate that managers of sub-units of high and low morale and/or performance exhibited significantly different levels of mastery of managerial behaviors. In contrast, no differences in frequency of managerial behaviors were observed for either high or low morale units, and only one managerial behavior was observed to be significantly more frequent for managers of high and low performing units. Whereas, higher frequency of managerial behaviors was found, overall, to be associated with low and not high performing sub-units.

Monitoring active volcanoes and mitigating volcanic hazards: the case for including simple approaches

Simple approaches to problems brought about eruptions and their ensuing hazardous effects should be advocated and used by volcanologists while awaiting more sophisticated remedies. The expedients we advocate have all or many of the following attributes: only locally available materials are required; no extensive training of operators or installation is necessary; they are affordable and do not require foreign aid or exports; they are often labor intensive and are sustainable without outside assistance. Where appropriate, the involvement of local residents is advocated. Examples of simple expedients which can be used in forecasting or mitigating the effects of crises emphasize the relative ease and the less elaborate requirements with which simple approaches can be activated. Emphasis is on visual observations often by untrained observers, simple meteorogical measurements, observations of water level in lakes, temperature and chemistry of springs and fumaroles, new springs and collapse areas and observations of volcanic plumes. Simple methods are suggested which can be applied to mitigating damage from mudflows, nuées ardentes, tephra falls and gas discharge. A review in hindsight at Ruiz includes the use of both chemical indicators and simple mudflow alarms. Simple expedients are sufficiently effective that any expert volcanologist called to aid in a crisis must include them in the package of advice offered. Simple approaches are a critical and logical complement to highly technical solutions to hazardous situations.

Training Observers to Detect Deception Effects of Self-Monitoring and Rehearsal

It was predicted that trained observers would detect deception more accurately than untrained observers. More specifically, it was predicted that the highest deception detection accuracy would be found among trained observers judging the veracity of low self-monitors and unrehearsed liars, whereas the lowest detection accuracy would be found among untrained observers judging the veracity of high self-monitors and rehearsed deceivers. It also was hypothesized that the discrepancy between observers‘actual ability to detect deception and their certainty in the accuracy of their judgments would be smaller for trained observers than for untrained observers. Observers trained to detect deception used six behavioral cues based on research by deTurck and Miller (1985): (a) message duration, (b) response latency, (c) adaptors, (d) pauses, (e) nonfluencies, and (f) hand gestures. Results confirmed both hypotheses.

Scaling procedures for specifying color appearance

AbstractColors of objects are often specified by color matches in some standard colorimetric system. While color‐matching allows a color to be reproduced accurately, it does not specify what the color actually looks like. Color appearance (i.e., hue, saturation, brightness) can be measured by direct psychophysical scaling techniques; however, these methods have not been standardized and have been confined mostly to the laboratory. We have examined several variants of continuous, numerical scaling of hue and saturation to find a procedure that is usable, even by untrained observers. Appearances of monochromatic, equal‐luminance light flashes were scaled along the dimensions of the unique hue sensations (red, yellow, green, blue) and apparent saturation. These functions were obtained for various stimulus conditions, including changes in stimulus luminance, size, and eccentricity. Multidimensional scaling methods were used to derive metrically uniform color appearance diagrams from the hue and saturation scaling data. Validity of the scaling procedures was assessed by deriving well‐known visual functions, such as wavelength discrimination, from the color appearance diagrams. The direct scaling method was shown to be generally useful, and both trained and untrained observers readily and reliably used the technique.

Individual Differences in Responses of Untrained Observers to Stroboscopic Apparent Motion

Two large groups of inexperienced subjects (n = 208 and n = 50) and a small group of experienced subjects (n = 5) were tested using time-till-breakdown as a measure of long-range apparent motion across a range of temporal frequencies. One group of inexperienced subjects was retested after one week and demonstrated quite stable patterns of response. Large intersubject variability was observed in terms of the amount of motion seen, with most inexperienced subjects reporting very little apparent motion. A raster display produced a peak frequency 1 Hz higher than a standard tachistoscope display. The role of experience was also examined with a small group of inexperienced subjects (n = 8) tested once daily over five consecutive days. There was high intersubject variability and intrasubject consistency, demonstrating little influence of learning and experience. The results are discussed in terms of current ideas on the breakdown effect.

The muscle twitch monitor: a rapid unequivocal method of monitoring free muscle transfers

A free latissimus dorsi muscle transfer, which required anastomotic revision on two occasions within twenty-four hours of operation, illustrates how the change in response of electrically induced muscle contraction to ischaemia can be used as a rapid and sensitive method of monitoring free muscle transfers. It is a response that has the great merit of being easily recognised by untrained observers because it relies on an absolute rather than a relative change in the measured modality. Furthermore it is not influenced by the clinical condition of the patient or by changes in the flap's environment. Its potential is discussed.

Observer bias in scoring boys' and girls' aggression

In order to examine the possibility that the attribution of more aggression to boys may be in part a function of observer bias, 40 adults were asked in Study 1 to record the degree of aggression in a series of line drawings that showed children interacting. It was found that a significant subset of both males and females recorded more aggression for boys than for girls when they scanned scenes that showed numerous children interacting. When they rated a series of drawings of two children interacting, males rated boys as significantly more aggressive than girls. Study 2 examined 48 adults' responses under one of three instruction conditions. The findings of Study 1 were replicated. Additionally, it was found that some forms of instruction eliminate sex-typed biases while others yield significant biases among both male and female untrained observers. These results are interpreted in light of the literature on schematic processing. Implications pertaining to the socialization of aggression and to research on sex differences in aggression are discussed.