324 



Information Storage and Neural Control 



% 



100 



90- 

 80- 

 70 



UTILIZATION 



OF 



ADJUSTMENT ^° 



PROCESSES 



40+18 



• • OMISSIONS 



O— O ERRORS 



A A QUEUING 



>> K FILTERING 



AVERAGE 

 SECONDS OF 

 QUEUING 



50 + 21 



123456789 

 INPUT RATE IN BITS PER SECOND 

 Fig. 10. Average utilization of adjustment processes by teams in Social Institution 



Experiment. 



research and had greatly improved their transinission rates since 

 their earher trials. 



Four adjustment processes were used by the teams in these 

 studies — omission, error, queuing, and filtering. The experimental 

 instructions prevented use of approximation and multiple channels. 

 Utilization of all adjustment processes was measured in percent- 

 ages, except for queuing, which was measured in average number 

 of seconds of delay (Fig. 10). 



An associated study directed by Meier (17) dealt with the 

 effects of overloads of demands upon the Undergraduate Library 

 of The University of Michigan at periods of peak use. The inflow 

 of students and faculty into this library, each person with special 

 needs, is not an overload of energy or matter, for the library is 

 never actually physically unable to hold them. The demands upon 

 members of the library staff for service, however, can constitute 

 what is essentially an information overload. 



Participant observation and other operations research procedures 

 were employed to find how much the library was used at top load 

 periods and what changes occurred in library functions at such 

 times. Since no significant difference in average time of getting 



