ENHANCING HUMAN PERFORMANCE: AN EVALUATION OF 'NEW AGE' TECHNIQUES CONSIDERED BY THE U.S. ARMY

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• Publication Date: March 1, 1990
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General Article
ENHANCING HUMAN
PERFORMANCE:
An Evaluation of "New Age"
ilnrom'entional techniques considered by the United States
Army far enhancing human performance trere revietrt'd during
a ntwo-year study by a c?ornntittee of? the Nutionul Research
Council. Little or no scientific evidence was fruatd to support
the effectiveness of several, including neurolinguivtir? progrum-
tiling in interpersonal irtfluenc?r and such paranormal terh-
niques as retrwte vieiving and psyc?hokine.sis. Mixed results
were seen to charcrc'teri e orhertechniques, for example. group-
cohesion procedures. Further study was suggested fur a few,
jincindinq mental practice rtf motor skills. Guideline,' requested
of the committee Jbr future arm's evoluution of enhancement
ierhniques?.stressed the needfor. and the eonc/uct of both lub-
araton+ and field research. The contrmtiee rt'contmended fur-
l +i+ then consideration of mainstream research in the behavioral
i(lences as a basis for effective performance ertltancente'nt .
I Address conevpondence and reprint requests to John A. Swets.
I Bell Beranek and Newman, Inc.. 10 Moulton Street, Camhridgc, MA
9:138, or to Robert A. 13iork, Department of Psychology, University of
California, Los Angeles, CA 9(K)24. .
Five years ago the Army Research Institute (AR!)
asked the National Research Council to assess a field of
techniques designed to enhance human performance. As
,a class, these techniques are extraordinary in that they
were developed outside of mainstream research in the
behavioral sciences and are accompanied by strong
claims for high effectiveness. The ARI wanted a commit-
tee to examine the potential of certain specified tech-
to recommend appropriate criteria for evaluating
such techniques, and, where possible, to specify the re-
search necessary to advance understanding of perfor-
mance enhancements in areas of behavior related to the
proposed techniques. In pursuing this line of investiga-
tion, the ARi was reacting to broad and substantial ad-
vocacy in the army of trying to gain large enhancements
of human performance by any conceivable means.
The army's interests, as summarized by ARi. included
more efficient learning, improved motor skills, altered
mental states, stress reduction, interpersonal influence,
group cohesion, and certain parapsychological pro-
cesses. More specifically, the army was considering the
possibilities that learning could take place during sleep,
that learning might be accelerated via packaged programs
designed for that purpose, and that motor skills might be
enhanced by guided imagery, mental practice, visual con-
centration, and biofeedback. Further, it wished to pursue
the possibility that mental states could be altered by self-
induced hypnotism, meditation, focused concentration,
or the integration of activity in the brain's hemispheres,
in order to promote periods of peak performance. The
army was also interested in whether biofeedback and
methods that purport to alter mental states might be use-
ful in managing stress. Certain aspects of interpersonal
and group processes were under examination as well,
including whether group cohesion, which might be fos-
tered by keeping army units intact, enhances group and
individual performance. Finally, the army had an interest
in such parapsychological processes as remote viewing
and psychokinesis, or mind over matter, especially men-
tal influence on the functioning of remote machines.
It may at first -seem strange that anyone in the army
was interested in the panoply of behavioral processes and
techniques that characterized the countercultural human-
potential movement of the 1960s. However, in the 1980s
advocates of such techniques have had success with an
approach that is more entrepreneurial than ideological.
Moreover, the techniques are presented less as related to
general well-being and more as related; to specific tasks,
such as marksmanship, second-language learning, and
sleep inducement. The army is not alone in this interest:
Private industry and the general public have also given
much attention Co these New Age techniques in commer-
cially available programs of general training and self help,
The army's.int.erest in extending human abilities through
parapsychological processes, originated primarily in intel-
ligence circles rather than in training circles, but para-
1 1990 VOL. I. NO 2. MARCH 1990 Copyright 1990 American Psychological Society 85
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PSYCHOI.O(,I(.AL SC E. CE.
Enhancing Human Performance
psychology soon became a bedfellow of the unconven-
tional training techniques in the army.
FORMATION OF THE NRC COMMITTEE
In conversations between Edgar M. Johnson. techni-
cal director of ARI, and David A. Goslin, then executive
director of the Commission on Behavioral and Social Sci-
ences and Education (CBASSE) of the NRC, and in a
formal letter request, it was indicated that the ARI lead-
ership wanted help, not only to reduce broad pressures
on it that had recently intensified, but also with an im-
portant national problem of interest to private industry
and the public as well as the military. CBASSE members
who evaluated this request included psychologists Wil-
liam K. Estes, Ira J. Hirsh, Lauren Resnick, and Stanley
Schachter. In response to the request, CBASSE moved
to set up a committee especially for the purpose, with
suggestions. for particular kinds of expertise also from
other advisers including psychologists Robert Boruch,
Wendell R. Garner, Bert F. Green, and Gardner Lindzey.
The first author of this article was enlisted as committee
chair and, together with Goslin, he developed the final
recommendations for membership that were endorsed by
the commission.' Daniel Druckman was appointed a the
committee's study director.
The Committee on Techniques for the Enhancement
of Human Performance (henceforth. the committee) met
first in late July 1985. ARI's Johnson along with George
Lawrence, its liaison to the committee, arranged for sev-
eral speakers at the first meeting, who informed and
sometimes perplexed the members. A few speakers de-
scribed single techniques, others waxed enthusiastic
about the full range of them. and one, a retired general,
spoke eloquently of his own extensive psychokinetic
powers.
General Maxwell R. Thurman was the motivational
speaker at dinner the first evening. His graphs demon-
strated that in terms of recruits' test scores. the army was
doing increasingly better, and also better compared to the
other services. His review of the traditional and growing
demands placed on soldiers, however, made clear that
these demands continued to outstrip abilities by a large
margin.
THE COMMITTEE'S APPROACH
The committee could easily imagine the great difficul-
ties faced in Converting recruits, most of them with min-
I. The committcc consisted of John A, Swct,, chair, Robert A.
B,iork, Thomas D. Cook, Gerald C. Davison, Lloyd G. Humphreys.
Ray Hyman. Daniel M. Landers, Sandra A Mobley, t,ymnn W. Porter.
Michael 1. Posner, Walter Schneider, Jerome E. Singer, Sally P
Springer. and Richard F. Thompson. .
imal education as well as short terms or duty, into so1?
diers who possess the personal and social skills needed in
battle as well as the technical skills needed to operate and
maintain complex equipment. It could understand urges
to look beyond slow. narrow, and insuffiCie.naly targeted j
mainstream research on human performance to enhance.
ments that could come from elsewhere. And it was aware
that those in the army responsible for training and tech.
nique evaluation would face difficulties in responding to
strong enhancement claims (both by army officers and
outside vendors) for diverse and far-ranging techniques.
The committee agreed that the general problem deserved
objective and thorough examination and was willing to
initiate such a study.
Subcommittees were formed on various facets of the
problem. including evaluation issues, sleep learning, ac.
Celerated learning, guided imagery, biofeedback, split.
brain effeet5, stress management, cohesion. influence,
and parapsychology. The committee met as a whole six
times in 2 years, in whole or part made ten site visits,
invited twenty or so briefings, and commissioned ten
background review papers.` It met twice with a Re"
source Advisory Group of army officers formed for the
purpose.
ARMY BACKGROUND
The army's interest in parapsychology is reported to
be longstanding, including, for example, sponsorship of
E&P research by J.B. Rhine in the early 1905. Remote.
viewing experiments were conducted for the army by the
Stanford Research Institute in the 1970s. A military colt
cern has been that the Soviets have been active in the
development of psychic -abilities, including the ability to
affect the behavior of others through mental telepathy. A
proposal developed in the army for the First Earth Bal- i
talion envisioned warrior monks with it range of parapsy
2. Ten commissioned papers, available from the National Ac:tder. y
press, are thcsc. Eric Eich, Learning during sleep. Robert E Slavin,
Principles or effective instruction; Deborah L. Feltz. Daniel M
Landers. and Betsy J. Becker. A rcvisci meta-analysis of the mental
practice literature on motor skill learning. Seymour Levine, Serestand
performance; Raymond W. N ivraco, Stress reduction and the milnarv;
Dean Ci. Pruitt. dcnnifcr Crocker, and Deborah Hanes, Matching and
other influence strategies; Boaz Tamir and Gideon Kunda, Culture and t
military perfurmnnce.; Janie% E, Alcock, A cumprehnnsive review,f
mu,ictr empirical studies, in par,apsychc'logy mvolvcng random evert Qca
eratars and remote ' tcw+n Mwl ca J Harris and Robert Rascnthi.
lnterpersona expectancy efecti and human performance research:
Dale Griffin. Intuitive )ud(sment and the evaluation of evidence.
3, The Resource Advisory Group consisted of general officers wbo
held the positions of Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel. Depu() Chill
c,f Staff for In(elligence. Dircclor of Army Research and Technolo4?.
Commander of the Soldicr Support Center, and Commander. Medal
e?.
Research and t)evelopment Command and as well the Amotant Sc
rclary of the Army for Manpower and Rcserve Affutr%.
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Enhancing Human Performance
pared for the Army Research Institute by John Palmer
review of the same studies that it commis-
d f
rom a
an
sioned Alcock to make. The committee also reviewed the
-other main body of experimental research, namely. on
Ganzfeld experiments, in which a homogeneous visual
field is used to alter states of mind in the interest of
receiving psi signals. A paper on intuitive Judgment and
the evaluation of evidence was prepared for the commit-
tee by Griffin (see footnote 2).
With particular attention to the three sets of experi-
mental studies, but including its other reviews and expe-
riences, the committee found no scientific warrant the
existence of parapsycolo ical phenomena. t.-No scien
titre Juste tcatron was the phrase agreed on with NRC
"
"
cap-
warrant
editors for the committee's report, but
tures better the intended sense.) Though the committee
therefore saw no reason for direct army involvement. it
felt that monitoring by the army of the main, current.
experimental work would be prudent and suitable. If that
monitoring led to the proposal of specific studies, the
recommendations were that army and outside scientists
arrive at an agreed-upon research protocol, that the re-
search be conducted by proponents and skeptics, and
that attention he given to the manipulability and practical
application of any effects found to exist.
GENERAL CONCLUSIONS
AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The committee observed a pervasive army tendency to
accept and implement enhancement techniques on the
basis of personal or clinical experience and marketplace
popularity instead of on the basis of research evidence
that could establish the existence and usefulness of an
enhancement effect. In expressing its concern about this
practice, the committee issued a list of questions about
presumed enhancement techniques that had been pre-
pared by scientists at the Walter Reed Army Institute for
Research: What changes will the technique produce'?
What evidence supports the claims for the technique?
What theories stand behind it? Who will be able to use it?
What are its implications for army operations? How does
it fit with army philosophy? What are the cost-benefit
factors'? (Hegge, Tyner. & Genser, 1983).
Because strong claims of support from basic research
have been made for some of the techniques the commit-
tee examined. the committee reviewed in its report what
it takes to justify a scientific claim. Specifically, it high-
lighted the need to conduct basic research so that infer-
ences could be drawn in accordance with scientific stan-
dards---inferences about novel concepts, causation,
alternative explanations of causal relations, and the gen-
eralizability of causal relations. Standards for evaluating
field tests of enhancement programs were also reviewed,
including such factors as immediate effects, side effects,
assigning merit and meeting needs. likelihood of transfer.
and contrast with alternatives.
The committee acknowledged the differences between
rational decision making in science and in practical con-
texts. for example. differences in the benefits of correct
decisions and the costs of incorrect decisions and in what
is viewed as a timely decision. It recommended that the
army acknowledge such differences explicitly in connec?
tion with decisions about particular techniques. It set
forth an analysis of the unreliability of' testimonies as
evidence for enhancement effects. And it stipulated what
it thought would be useful mechanisms for advice to dif-
ferent parts of the army as well as bidding procedures it
felt would facilitate informed choices of programs and
vendors.
The committee recommended that the army continue
to examine vigorously enhancement techniques that ap-
pear promising. It added the advice that the examination
should be systematic and should include techniques
drawn from mainstream research as well as packages pro-
moted by vendors. A main concern of the committee was
to link more closely the army's great interest in enhanc.
ing human performance and its substantial resources for
conducting tests to evaluate techniques. The committee
remarked on the potential for transfer to the civilian sec-
tor,
COMMITTEE PUBLICATIONS
The committees final report was published as a book
by the National Academy Press in early 1988, entitled
Enhancing human performance: Issues. theories, and
techniques, edited by Druckman and Swets, (A second
printing was made a year later.) With preliminary copies
available, a briefing was given army officials and a press
conference was held in December 1987, with Swets,
Bjork. Hyman, Singer, and Druckman representing the I
committee. The press conference was attended by some
fifty reporters who heard a 15-minute prepared statement i
and then raised questions for an hour or so, Primary ar-
ticles appeared in the d'ew York Times (Leary, 1987),
Wushington Post (Squires, 1987a. 1987b), Washington
Times (Price, 1987). and Los Angeles Times (Gillette.
1987), and articles based on them appeared in many other
local and regional newspapers. Other news articles were
published in Science (Holden, 1987)? Science Nrl+s
(Greenberg, 1988), Science and Government Report
(Greenberg, 1987), APA Monitor (Hostetler, 1988), Psv-
chnhogy Today (Roberts, 1988), The Chronicle of Higher
Education (Wheeler. 1987), Beijing's Science and Tech-
nology Daily for June 29, 1988, and the NRC's News I
Report (Jarmal, 1988). Swets and Druckman co-authored
an op-ed article that was printed in 25 daily newspapers.
The press conference was videotaped by NBC, CNN.
and the United States Information Agency. CNN re-
VOL. I. NO. 2. MARCH 199)
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John A. Swets and Robert A. Bjork
played small segments for a few days. NBC's camera did
not operate properly so Tom Brokaw's evening news
used file footage representing some of the Army's more
lurid past interests, for example. in walking through
walls, and he commented in kind, National Public Radio
presented for a few days an interview with Robert Bjork
an learning techniques.
PUBLIC REACTION
The committee's book was reviewed descriptively un-
der the heading "Briefly Noted" by Sheldon Zedeck
(1988) in Contemporary P.Y.vchology. It was reviewed ex-
;cnsively by Philip Morrison (1988) in Scientf/iv Aencri-
tcul. 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"
(p. 109). Irwin Child (1988), in a review for Choi(,e, com-
plimented the exposition of general principles of evalua-
tion but noted what he called the report's "bias against
exploration of apparent anomalies not yet well attested"
l.p. 536). Kendrick Frazier (1988) reviewed the book ex-
tensively for the Skeptical Inquirer, with emphasis on
paranormal phenomena.
Druckman and Swets received 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
techniques. In an interchange of several letters, Wilse
Webb argued that we had been too generous to one tech-
nique, that sleep learning was not worth a "second
look."
The strongest reactions came as expected from propo-
nents 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 he reconsidering support
of parapsychological research. and he no doubt had in
mind his plans to sponsor a bill to create a commission
to. scud
sychology and othe o mane -
enhancement techniques, a bill co-sponsored by Senators
Gore and Kassehaum and now in committee (e.g? News-
w~eek, June 26, 1989, p. 8). Not satisfied by the com i-
car-
esters. Ja, mot" I~
sort itself in this argument and that failing direct resolu-
tion with the NRC, resolution could he pursued through
scientific forums and Journals.
The President of the Parapsychological Association,
Inc.. Richard S. Broughton, also wrote to chairman
Press emphasizing what e and his associates saw as
bias in the selection of the committee and an attempt Fey
the committee's chair to suppress a positive evaluation of
a ,set of parapsychology studies. Upon 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 Omni 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.
Colonel 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-
tently supported the committee's conclusions (and, we
understand, put off a potential donor as a result).`
Army leadership was initially 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 time went on, the army received
favorable comments from several sources about the com-
mittee's report and the interest of field leaders increased.
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 staffs monthly newsletter.
In September 1988, Bjork. Druckman, Johnson, and
Swets went to General Thurman's headquarters at Fort
Monroe, Virginia, to brief him on the study and to pro-
5, Coloncl Alexander, who co-hosted the committee at Cleve Back-
stcr's laboratory test of the emotional response'ot' Posner's Icukocvtes,
wrote that the committee denigrated such scientific research by men-
tioning also the scientifically unsupported ideas of psychic warfare and
psychotronic weapons. Meanwhile, R.A. McConnell wrote that the
legitimate rc,earch on parapsychology. We noticed that the Parapsy-
chological Association. Inc., did not collaborate with McConnell in its
complaint about the committee's report and that Robert Jahn chose to
l Tied their case to the undersecretary of th army, who
responded that it would he improper for th army to in-I
VOL. I. NO. 2, MARCH 1990
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:tice, re-
or skills
, and ye-
ns of re-
,y.
quisition
ing later
estricted
.ncies in
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Bjork &
1, 1988).
gy to en-
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'here are
(such as
:e motor
)tor pro-
trategies
that are
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arch on
it years
inflation
1, com-
cc have
its psy-
tes
variety
earlier
discussion of learning during sleep) that seem sensitive to
types of learning without awareness ("da(a-driven
processing"), there is renewed interest in subliminal
learning (e.g., Jacoby & Whitehouse. in press: Marcel,
1983). While such results suggest a new look at the sub-
liminal-learning issue, a 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 literature 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
iuggests that mood states may be altered by influences on
bloodflow that are it consequence of the differing facial
jnuscular patterns corresponding to various emotional
expressions (Z jonc. Murphy. & Ingle-hart, 1989). AR1.
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
public and private organizations; included are assess-
ment batteries designed to 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 to trainers as well as to the trainees be-
cause of high "face validity." but they have been subject
1 to littl rigorous research. To help e the the questions,
the committee /rn missinned Paul Thayer to write a cit-
ical review of the releva
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 he
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 he 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
I group? Current research may not supply definitive an-
John A. Swets and Robert A. Bjor
swers to these and a number of' related questions, but the
issues are important enough to army functioning to be
addressed. if only to clarify the questions and to outline
needed research.
Although other arrangements might be workable, we
found that the National Research Council provides an
ideal setting for it study of this sort. The Council was
designed expressly for the purpose. first under the spon-
sorship of the National Academy of Science and now
administered as well by the National Academy of Engi-
neering and the Institute of Medicine. The NAS was
chartered by Congress in 1463: the NRC was established
in 1916, Among the NRC's strengths are that it spans the
scientific and professional disciplines: it benefits from the
prestige of its governing academies; it provides in com-
petent fashion the services required by committee func-
. tion: and it follows guidelines to promote thorough and
objective reports, including procedures for proposal and
report review, Committee members are suggested by
broadly based 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 viewpointshey Kr
a~ke.d to verify that they have no conflict of interest and
they serve without financial compensation.
Members of the committee generally regarded their
task as challenging and they demonstrated consistently
that it was engaging. They came to the meetings almost
without exception, made site visits willingly, submitted
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
process to psychologists and scientists in related fields.
The continuing committee can reasonably anticipate that
it will contribute more by steering the army toward prom-
ising new ways to enhance training and performance and
less by saving the Army from investing in ineffective
techniques. It will likely also serve an advisory role for
some specific enhancement projects undertaken in the
army.
A long-term, successful impact, of the committee's
work, in both of its phases, is hardly assured. The power
of the human-potential movement in the minds of the
citizenry. as evidenced by its marketplace popularity,
dwarfs the force of mainstream psychology. New Age
techniques are also apparently making substantial in-
roads on the more than $30 billion a year that the Amer.
can Society for Training and Development estimates to
he spent on.formal courses in industry (Wall Street Jour-
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Enhancing Human Performance
That research, employing amnesic as well as normal sub-
jects, has illustrated that certain indirect measures of
memory (for example, perceptual identification, word-
fragment completion, procedural skills) can show large
effects of prior episodes when conventional recall and
recognition measures fail to show any such effects.
Viewed in that context, only certain types of learning
should take place during true EEG-verified sleep. and
learning should show up on only certain types of memory
tests. In general, the past negative results were obtained
with inappropriate presentation procedures and with test-
ing procedures that were insensitive to any learning that
;tight take place.
The committee's primary recommendation was that
the degree of learning of materials presented during sleep
he examined again as a basic-research problem. Rather
than looking at intentional recall or recognition of mate-
rial presented during true sleep. the committee urged the
army to look for effects such as lowering of perceptual
thresholds for items presented during sleep, semantic or
affective biasing in the postsleep interpretation of verbal i
items as a consequence of their being presented in biased
contexts during. sleep, repetition effects (enhancing
postsleep performance on material studied before the
sleep period by repeating the material during the sleep
period). and priming effects (facilitating postsleep acqui-
sition of material by presenting that material during the
preceding sleep period).
Recent research on state dependencies in human
learning (Eich, 1989) also influenced the committee. If
learning during sleep is to some extent state-specific,
then it might transfer more effectively to the states of
drowsiness and semisleep that accompany exhaustion
and sleep deprivation than it does to the normal waking
state. Since cognitive performance deteriorates under
sleep deprivation, such potential transfer of sleep-
training might help the subject when he or she needs it
most. Finally, the committee thought that learning that
depends on sleep disruption might be examined from a
cost-benefit standpoint; procedures that disrupt the
quantity or quality of sleep might shorten training or have
other benefits that could outweigh their costs.
I Accelerated Learning
I The committee focused primarily on one particular
learning package, SALTT (Suggestive accelerative learn-
ing and teaching techniques.) Literature in the Journal or
the Society of Acee(erative Learning was reviewed and
committee member Schneider attended the society's na-
tional meeting in 1986. The commissioned paper by
Slavin provided background information on the teacher's
contributions to effective instruction and the paper by
Harris and Rosenthal considered the potential contribu-
tion of the learner's expectations in the SALTT environ-
ment (see footnote 2).
The committee concluded that the extravagant claims
for accelerated learning programs are unjustified. The ef-
fectiveness of such programs did not exceed what might
he expected on the basis of the mainstream instructional
elements (for example. imagery. cooperative learning,
tests as motivational devices and learning events) that are
embedded in a non-traditional framework including re- .
laxation exercises and special music. The committee did
feel, however, that there was value in the kind of holistic
approach to instruction exemplified by such programs.
The army was encouraged to use its resources to evaluate
competing training procedures in order to isolate the
components of instruction that are effective in army set-
tings.
Improving Motor Skills
The committee focused on three strategies to enhance
motor skills: mental practice, visual concentration, and
biofeedback. A background paper by Feltz. Landers, and
Becker on the mental-practice literature was solicited by
the committee (see footnote 2). and there were four brief.
ings: one on peak performance issues, and three by ex-
perts on or promoters of visual-training techniques, ln'
addition, Landers and Bjork made site visits to the head- I
quarters of SyberVision and to the Vic Braden Tennis
Academy. SyberVision is a highly successful marketer of
audio and visual tapes designed to enhance skills such as
golf, tennis, skiing, howling. racquetball, and others.
"
Tapes such as "The Neuropsychology of Achievement
address more global skills. What is shown on the tapes
and the instructions to the learner are supposedly guided
by a principle of "neuromuscular programming." which
is in turn derived from Karl Pribram's holographic theory
of brain function. The subcommittee interviewed Pri-
bram, director of research for SyberVision, and Stephen'
DeVore, founder and president.
With respect to mental practice, defined as "the sym-
bolic rehearsal of a physical activity in the absence ofany i
.
gross muscular movements" (Richardson, 1967, p. 95)
the committee's recommendations were quite positive. A
meta-analysis of the relevant research literature revealed
that mental practice yields a gain in performance on the
order of half a standard deviation when, compared to ap- I
propriate controls. The gain is somewhat greater for mo-
tor tasks that incorporate a substantial cognitive compo-
nent. and the advantages of mental practice can be
enhanced if physical practice and mental practice are in
terspersed. The committee recommended that the army
.
evaluate mental practice as a training component in op.!!
erational military tasks. and that the army pursue basic,
research to determine what mixture of mental and phys?
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cal practice might be optimal (given considerations of
4
expense, equipment availability. and so forth).
Concerning visual-training programs, the committee
concluded that there was no research base to suggest that
such training leads to improved performance. There is
evidence that certain visual abilities can be improved by
training the eye muscles, but evidence that attentional
skills can be enhanced by visual training is lacking.
The committee concluded that there remain too many
bose ends for the relationship between biofeedback and
skilled performance to be determined. Part of the prob-
lem is that biofeedback is often used as part of broader
therapeutic programs that incorporate other, possibly ef-
fecuvc. techniques. Another problem is that biofeedback
is used to train physiological parameters (heart rate, for
example) although clear knowledge of the most desirable
levels of these parameters with respect to a given skill
typically does not exist. In case, where that relationship
isknown (e.g., hand warmth and finger dexterity), there
is evidence of performance benefit.
Altering Mental States
The idea that people can achieve an internal state that
will be optimal for a broad range of performance has been
appealing. Some level of arousal is optimal for pelfor-
Imance of a given complexity (Duffy. 1962; Yerkes &
Dodson. 1908) and, specifically. the optimal level de-
creases as task complexity increases (Easterbrook.
1 1959). This concept fits the behavior theories of the
1950s, which specified that a source of energy or drive is
required to keep the organism active and was reinforced
~ . by the physiological discovery of a diffuse activating sy,-
tent in the brain (Moruzzi & Magoun, 1949). However,
with new knowledge of the variety and specificity of neu-
rotransmitter systems (Robbins & Everitt, 19242) and with
psychological theory focused on cognition, we have be-
gun to think of a large number of cortical computations in
'widely distributed neural systems (Rumelhart & McClel-
land, 1986). The view that cortical computations are mod-
Iutated by different transmitter systems in varying ways
makes it more difficult to suppose that any training tech-
nique will provide optimal states for all forms of physical
and mental activity. An example cones from the Finding
that the optimal conditions of alertness for rapid respond-
ing differ from those for the best memory performance
IPosner, 1975).
Unfortunately. the committee did no( find time to ex-
plore the evidence for the wide variety of specific training
4. Following on that recommendation, an experiment is underway at
the Rcdslnne Arsenal in Alahama to evaluate mental practice as a com-
ponent in the training of complex soldering I. elecnnonic circuits.
Landers guided the design of condiiinnx that will permit a comparison
t mental-practice. pticcbo. and standard.truning groups.
or induction methods that might provide a basis for tech-
niques for manipulating internal states. it recommended a
literature review of links between such techniques and
changes in performance and, in its next phase, will ex-
amine further the techniques of intensive meditation and
self-hypnosis.
The committee considered issues of brain asymmetry
in detail. It reviewed Hemi-Sync, in part through a visit
by Springer. Thompson, Druckman, and Lawrence to the
Monroe Institute in Virginia where it was developed. Al-
though this technique is said to be valuable in therapeutic
settings (pain control in cancer patients. alcohol abuse,
retardation. autism, and seizure disorders) and though
formal research designs have been approximated for its
application in a few educational settings (courses in basic
broadcasting. car training, and introductory psychology).
the committee concluded that current attempts to alter
performance through coordinating the two hemispheres
by an external or instructional device do not appear to be
effective. It observed, more generally, that the scientific
evaluation of claims for enhancing performance by in-
volving the hemispheres differentially awaits the devel-
opment of reliable measures of hemispheric activity in
individuals.
Stress Management
The clear thrust of the evidence from various types of
research on stress, from animal studies as well as human
studies, is that an individuals uncertainty about impend-
ing events and sense of control over them are the main
factors in perceived stress. This conclusion is supported
by the extensive review paper on stress and performance
prepared for the committee by Seymour Levine tsee foot-
note 2). A case in point is the study of hormonal and
behavioral responses of Norwegian paratroop trainees as
they made repeated jumps from a tower on a guide wire
(Ursin, Baadc, & Levine, 1978). Initially high elevations
of cortisone in the blood were reduced to basal levels
after the, second jump and fear ratings changed similarly,
The implications of this research evidence for the
army are complex. There surely are practical limitations
on how much knowledge and understanding of the future
can be disseminated during combat and on how much
individual or group control can he permitted or demon-
strated. Moreover, though the committee focused prima-
rily on stress reduction, the arm , must also induce str_csti4
during training to prepare soldiers for real combat. A
y ovaco, C-00-cot, and Samson (1983) showed that
providing marine recruits with more realistic information
about what lies in store for them, and about the skills
necessary for coping with the rigors of boot camp, led
them to exhibit higher expectations of personal control
and efficacy.
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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 Denning, 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 tire 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 (N LP).
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,
hibits breakdown, without regard to the research com-
munity's ability to demonstrate relationships ("The New
Manning System Field Evaluation," 1986, No. ), p. 91.
Peters and Waterman's In Search of Excellence (1982)
may represent civilian scholars in this regard, and indeed.
the research community has been supportive to a degree
(e.g., Campbell, 1975: Katz & Kahn. 1966).
The committee, however, believed that the arguments
in favor ought to be treated as hypotheses rather than
conclusions, citing difficulties in separating conse-
quences and indicators of cohesion, the gap between im-
proved cohesion and better unit performance, the ten,
dency to rely on single-factor explanations of group
performance, and the possibility of reciprocal effects be?
tween cohesion and performance. The current evidence
makes it necessary for organizations seeking to benefit
from cohesion to proceed largely on faith; the committee
referred to some possible negative consequences of co-
hesion as reviewed by Porter, Lawler, and Hackman
(1975): ineffective handling of deviance, "group think,"
increased impact of any existing negative norms, and
increased intergroup conflict. The committee also dis?
cussed issues of implementation that it saw as having
received little attention. A background paper by Tamir
and Kunda (footnote 2) developed implications from the
cultural perspective advanced by Schein (1985).
and Druckmann attended a workshop on NLP techniques parapsychology
and interviewed Richard Dandier, one of the developers
that little if any evidence The subcommittee on parapsychology made its prin-
l
usion was
of NLP. The conc
exists either to support NLP's assumptions or to indicate cipal site visits to the laboratories of Robert _Jahn at
1 fluence Princeton University and-Helmut Schmidt in San Anto?
in
f
or soda
that it is effective as a strategy
NLP has also been used as a means to model expert ' nio to discuss experiments on the psychokinetic control
performance and the committee's visit to Fort. Bcnning of randuni event geueratufs. E.4perlllleiits U11 Icuwi
included a review of a test of this aspect of NLP as ap- viewing were also discussed at Princeton. Hyman and
plied to marksmanship. Though the committee could find Humphreys were joined on both visits by Dr. Paul Hor ~
only one evaluation of NLP as a model of expert perfor- witz, a consultant to the committee and a physicist at
manse, and found that one wanting, it did conclude that Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., who had organized a
the investigation of expert models nstitutes a worth- 1979 symposium on "Physics and Parasychology;' for
while activity for the army, and thecontinuing committee the American Physical Society that included as speakers
~- -- Helmut Schmidt and Ray Hyman. Also visiting Professor
plans to pursue that topic. D k an awrence and Paul Holland, then
m
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-
.
Jahn were roc
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 on
Soviet parapsychology by representatives of the Army l)
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 William
McGill, visited the laboratory of Cleve Dackster who sug. r ?
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John A. Swets and Robert A. Bjork
gents that the electrical activity of it preparation of leu- well, changes in certain bits (from zeros to ones or vice
kocytes taken from the mouth of a human subject re- versa) of predetermined and otherwise completely repro-
sponds to the emotional states of the subject, at a later ducible sequence-, as generated by an array of shift reg-
time and in a different place. For this visit, the promise to isters.
the committee, not fulfi e . was an observable demon- At his Mind Science Foundation in Sari Antonio. Dr.
stration of anomalous events. Schmidt described an experiment designed to permit a
Visitors to Professor Jahn's laboratory were shown skeptical group of scientists to apply adequate controls to
how subjects sit in front of one of three kinds of random I a .psychokinesis experiment without destroying the psy- .
t
b
tte
nd
.... __- .. _ _. _.._. . _ ~
t
m p
a
event geneI 13%o1 a a
device in one of three ways; In the PK + mode, the sub- searchers to be critical for obtaining positive results.
iect tries to get a higher than chance level of hits: in PK - c groups use a piece of ata not yet avtu a e e.g.,
m
s at some
k T
Y
'
i
e
or
yew
mode, a lower than chance level: and in baseline mode, a specified weather data from the
number of hits equal to the chance level. Under volitional agreed upon future date) as a pointer into a given table of
inditions, the subject is free to select among the three 'random numbers, which will generate "seed numbers" to
modes: under instructed conditions, he or she is not. a pseudorandom number generator and hence produce a
Horwitz observed that the investigators reported no dif- predetermined sequence of ones and zeros. Both groups
ierences in results occasioned by it transition from a true follow a set procedure to assign PK and PK - modes to
random event generator (an analogue electronic device or the seed numbers and thereby instructions for the sub-
,amechan1cal device) to a pseudorandom event generator ject. An agreement made during the site visit to conduct
'(adigital, programmed device) that is actually determin- a joint experiment with Dr. Horwitz as participant, which
istic and nonrandom. They believed that their subjects would be monitored by the committee, was not followed
could will changes in a voltage or voltage threshold of a up by Dr. Schmidt.
noise source or changes in the trajectories of small ball c c mrttee benefited from it review of the litera-
taIlina down a chute with multiple obstacles and, equally tore on remote viewing and random event generators pre-
'illiam
10 sug-
to right: Davison, Bjork, Posner, Hyman. Schneider, Swcts, Landers, Mobley. Portcr. Druckman. Hum-
phreys, Thompson, Springer. and Singer.
'H 1990 ( VOL. 1, NO. 2, MARCH 1990
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