The Individual as an Information Processing System 31 7 



is a set of eight buttons for each of the slots being used. Since he 

 can see stimuH in a maximum of four slots at once, altogether he 

 has thirty-two buttons, four sets of eight buttons each. If an arrow 

 in Position B appears in Slot 3, the correct response is to push 

 Button B of the set for Slot 3. Any other response is an error. 

 If the subject pushes none, that is an omission. 



Queuing is also possible. The subject has a foot pedal with 

 which he can lower or raise opaque strips behind each of the slots. 

 At the beginning of each test, only the top square in each of the 

 slots being used is open so that light can come through. If the 

 subject pushes the pedal, he can move the opaque strips to open 

 as many as eleven more squares, a maximum of twelve; or by push- 

 ing the pedal in the other direction he can close these up again, as 

 he wishes. The moving picture film is made so that if an arrow 

 appears in Position B in Slot 3 in Frame 1 of the film, it goes to 

 the next lower position in that slot in Frame 2, and to the next 

 lower position in Frame 3, until having gone through all twelve 

 positions, it finally disappears from the screen. In the meantime 

 other stimuli may be appearing higher in the same slot, or in 

 other slots. Therefore, when the subject pushes his queuing pedal 

 he gives himself more time to respond to the stimulus before it 

 disappears. He can filter by paying attention only to the arrows 

 pointing up, or to those pointing to the left, rather than to those 

 pointing to all eight positions. He can approximate by pushing 

 all four left buttons in Slot 3, if he is not certain in which of the 

 four left directions the arrow pointed, but knows it pointed toward 

 the left; or by pushing all eight buttons for Slot 3 if he simply 

 saw an arrow but has no idea of its direction. On occasion, he 

 can use multiple channels by working with both hands at the 

 same time. Finally, escape is possible, if he gives up and refuses to 

 continue the task. So all the mechanisms of adjustment that we 

 have mentioned are possible on the IOTA. 



This apparatus can increase the amount of information per 

 second in several ways: 1) by increasing the ensemble, or the 

 number of alternate positions for the arrows from two (1 bit) to 

 eight (3 bits); 2) by speeding the movie; 3) by increasing the 

 range, or raising the number of slots used simultaneously; or 4) by 

 altering the degree of regularity or randomness of the presentations. 



