OTCI - Open Test of Context Independence

Here is what I recall of the origins of this test.

Back in the early 1980s a professor of mine named Susan Cummings, who had studied and learned about I.Q. and other tests at the University of Chicago, introduced us to a test with no title (she just had some old mimeographed sheets), but which she described as a test of "context independence". She told us that either the U.S. Air Force, or perhaps the U.S. Army Air Force which preceded it (I am going by my own fallible memory) had found themselves in need of a screening tool, to avoid wasting time and money putting candidates into flight school who would eventually "wash out" once exposed to actual flight. Supposedly, the test of Context Independence that she showed us and invited us to try out, did an effective job of identifying in advance, persons who could function despite disorienting, unusual external stimuli (such as things going crazy all around you while you're hanging upside-down in your pilot's seat).

Personally it seemed to me that the test most probably measured g, functioning somewhat as an I.Q. test, but that was a guess on my part and my expertise is still pretty limited for the time being.

Further research would/will be needed to see if this test of Context Independence is sufficiently reliable on retesting; possibly also checking to see whether it correlates well with standard I.Q tests. Also it is possible to obtain a close variant of the "3-degrees of rotation" machine that was (presumably) used in the original experiments.

Here are some examples and/or partial equivalents of the physical apparatus that may have been associated with this test:

• 3 photos of apparatus
• A video fragment showing an apparatus in use.
  

Administration

You hand the test-taker the printed text, and without giving them time to read it to themselves or even examine it, ask them to read aloud from the first paragraph, which is presented unscrambled, with ordinary spacing of words. This gets them used to reading aloud, gets them started. You only need to allow them enough time - typically it takes just a sentence or to - for this to happen, for them to get comfortable, used to the situation.

After the first unscrambled paragraph, the following paragraphs are "all scrambled up" with pseudo-random spacing.

The test is simple; after the test-taker has gotten comfortable, you (politely, gently) interrupt them, asking them to now begin reading starting in the second paragraph. Basically you're observing things like:

• Fluency: how easily "the words roll off the tongue", how much it seems more like reading and less like stammering.
• Rapidity: how fast do they read compared to their normal (just established) reading speed?
• "Stuck": how long are the pauses, how much do they go back and repeat?
  
• Velocity: how rapidly, if at all, do they begin to master the task?
• Training/practice leading to asymptote: How good do they get? People differ in "endpoints" or final levels of mastery. Some get quite good at it in a short time.
  
• Determination, quitting: do they just give up, or do they keep at it? Are they a quitter?
  
• Affect: do they laugh, giggle, smile, seem to enjoy the challenge? It is normal to experience some nervousness; what type of nervousness? Is it more like anxiety? Do they get irritated?
  
• Are they a good sport? Eager?
  
• Do they hate it or like it?
• If you give the test to two different people, in each other's presence, one right after the other, there will generally be an obvious difference in their ability. What are their reactions to this?

Resources

• Two texts in English - from Tom Sawyer and Girl of the Limberlost
• Two texts, one in German, one in Danish
• Package of Python programs to respace files, also documentation and some resource files
• These are not "product-ized" - they are kind of crude, kludgey. But the process does work, so does the code.
  

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