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This article examines how metacognition and intellect mediates the initial inductive learning process in subjects using computer simulations, focusing on intellectual ability, task complexity, and successful learning methods. Findings suggest that metacognitive skillfulness is a predictor for qualitative knowledge acquisition and that intellectual ability is only a moderate predictor for quantitative knowledge acquisition.

Research presented concerns whether undergraduate job applicants prefer Web-based job postings over the more traditional paper-based listings. Contrary to the hypothesis, applicants preferred paper-based job postings, but when only given the option of Web-based, preferred those postings that were listed on Web-sites that were perceived to be of a higher quality than those that were perceived to be of a lower quality.

A clarification of conceptual inconsistencies in multi-dimensional descriptions of computer anxiety is presented. The computer-anxiety index (CAIN) is used.

A psychometric scale is described to measure students' attitudes toward computers and Web technology. The scale is developed within a theoretical framework deliniated by the Computer attitude Measure (CAM), the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), and the computer Attitude Scale.

The 'Foot-in-the-door' compliance technique involves proposing a little first request, followed later by a second more-expensive request. Results show that compliance to the first request increases the likelihood of compliance to the second request.

Internet designers have tended to emphasize technical factors at the expense of user needs. Potential contributions of Internet designers and psychologists toward bringing about a genuinely user-friendly, interactive Internet are discussed.

Research presented concerns the effective management of collaborative learning environments, focusing on how groups of students can utilize computer technology to foster learning and social interaction. Topics include cognitive development in the collaborative learning context and the development of computer programs and communication systems to aid instruction.

This article presents a model for designing effective information display screens, focusing on human-computer interaction and graphical aesthetics. Aesthetic measures under consideration include balance, symmetry, equilibrium, economy, regularity, rhythm, complexity, order, density, unity, proportion, sequence, and cohesion.

Research on college students suggests that listening to background music while using a word processing program to compose essays significantly disrupts writing fluency. Topics addressed include how listening to music places a high demand on working memory and slows the rate of word processed writing.

Research presented evaluates the effectiveness of a smokeless tobacco cessation program that uses computers to schedule gradual reductions in tobacco use. Results indicate that the small, hand held computer 'LifeSign for Smokeless Tobacco' is successful in helping tobacco users quit gradually.

A study examines the reactions of students to the Perseus Project, which attempts to introduce hypermedia into the educational curricula. The study examines the way students use the hypermedia databases and attempts to measure their cognitive response to interactive materials.

A study was conducted that used a self-report scale to measure the usage of Internet services among men and women as well as to examine the relationship of Internet usage patterns to extraversion and neuroticism. Three factors of Internet services were considered: leisure services, information services, and social services. Among men, extraversion was closely correlated to the use of leisure services, while among women, neuroticism was correlated to the use of social services.

A group of 53 employed individuals participated in a study designed to determine their attitudes toward electronic monitoring and surveillance in the workplace. These attitudes seemed to be shaped by two factors: the capabilities of the surveillance program, and the uses to which the monitoring information was applied.

A study was conducted to determine the attitudes of 234 students to network-based distance education. The participants responded anonymously to 60 survey items designed to assess their response to network-based instruction. The results bear out the observation that students with flexible learning styles tend to have a more positive response to network-based instruction.

Research presented concerns the effects of technology on data collection, focusing on computer versus pen and paper-based responses to open-ended questions. The hypothesis assumes a shorter response and omitted content when questions and answers are mediated via computer.

The authors investigated basic properties of social exchange and interaction with technology in an experiment on cooperation with a human-like computer partner or a real human partner. Talking with a computer partner may trigger social identity feelings or commitment norms. Participants played a prisoner's dilemma game with a confederate or a computer partner. Discussion, inducements to make promises, and partner cooperation varied across trials. On Trial 1, after discussion, most participants proposed cooperation. They kept their promises as much with a text-only computer as with a person, but less with a more human-like computer. Cooperation dropped sharply when any partner avoided discussion. The strong impact of discussion fits a social contract explanation of cooperation following discussion. Participants broke their promises to a computer more than to a person, however, indicating that people make heterogeneous commitments.

Females tend to score lower than males on measures of computer aptitude and attitudes. This study examined the potential effects of several mediating factors, sex of experimenter, sex of experimental partner, sex typing (Bern Sex Role Inventory score), and level of past experience, on a computer interaction task involving a dyad. College students, drawn from a primarily white college population, after completing paper-and-pencil measures assessing computer experience, computer attitudes, and gender roles, participated in a computer task involving drawing up to ten prescribed geometric patterns on a computer screen. Research assistants recorded the number of correctly completed patterns and videotaped participant interaction through a one-way mirror. Males reported experiencing more computer involvement than females. For males, past computer experience and masculinity were correlated with more positive computer attitude scores. For females, only past computer experience related to more positive computer attitude scores. Analyses of the computer interaction variable indicated that participants asked male research assistants significantly more questions than female research assistants. Several interaction effects were also found.

A method was developed for automated coding of facial behavior in computer-aided test or game situations. Facial behavior is registered automatically with the aid of small plastic dots which are affixed to pre-defined regions of the subject's face. During a task, the subject's face is videotaped, and the picture is digitized. A special pattern-recognition algorithm identifies the dot pattern, and an artificial neural network classifies the dot pattern according to the Facial Action Coding System (FACS; Ekman & Friesen, 1978). The method was tested in coding the posed facial expressions of three subjects, themselves FACS experts. Results show that it is possible to identify and differentiate facial expressions by their corresponding dot patterns. The method is independent of individual differences in physiognomy.

The relationship between employee performance with new technology and perceptual and communicative factors was investigated in a field study of 157 employees from a large corporation. Multiple regression analysis revealed that three perceptual factors (relative advantage, complexity, and trialability) and two communication factors (receiving task-related messages and receiving negative evaluations of the new technology) explained a significant amount of the variance in employee productivity with a new computer system. Post hoc analyses revealed that two communication factors (receiving task-related messages and receiving negative evaluations of the new technology), and two perceptual factors (relative advantage and complexity), were predictors of two additional performance measures: (1) the productivity decrease which occurred the first week the new technology was used, and (2) the speed with which the employees returned to previous productivity levels using the new technology.

The present studies were designed to test whether people are 'polite' to computers. Among people, an interviewer who directly asks about him- or herself will receive more positive and less varied responses than if the same question is posed by a third party. Two studies were designed to determine if the same phenomenon occurs in human-computer interaction. In the first study (N = 30), participants performed a task with a text-based computer and were then interviewed about the performance of that computer on I of 3 loci: (a) the same computer, (b) a paper-and-pencil questionnaire, or (c) a different (but identical) text-based computer. Consistent with the politeness prediction, same-computer participants evaluated the computer more positively and more homogeneously than did either paper-and-pencil or different-computer participants. Study 2 (N = 30) replicated the results with voice-based computers. Implications for computer-based interviewing are discussed.