Army motor transport personnel.

Abstract

The selection and training of motor vehicle drivers in the U.S. Army was not much of a problem previous to the present emergency because of the small number of motor vehicles in Army use, the relative stability of the personnel, and the ample time available in which to train such few drivers as were needed. But the present emphasis on motorization and the rapid expansion of personnel have changed this picture entirely. Thus today military units which never before employed motor vehicles, along with newly formed units, are receiving them in large numbers. As a consequence, many thousands of drivers must be quickly selected and trained to operate this new equipment. SELECTING DRIVERS FOR TRAININGThe Army furnishes a guide for the selection of drivers in its Motor Transport Manual (78) which reads as follows:An individual selected for training as a motor vehicle driver should be dependable, alert, sober, steady and ambitious, and should have good judgment and mechanical sense. He should be able to drive a motor vehicle satisfactorily under military conditions by day or night. He should react quickly and properly in given test situations. He should be able to differentiate promptly between red, green and amber lights. These tests may all be conducted in the unit.

Cognition, action, and object manipulation.

“…We began this article by noting that psychology has paid scant attention to motor control. In this connection, it is noteworthy that Psychological Bulletin , the premier journal for the review of literature in psychology since its founding in 1904, has carried only two articles with the terms motor control or movement control in their titles (Keele, 1968; Nathanson, 1932) and only 33 articles with the word motor in their titles, one of which was about U.S. Army motor transport personnel (DeSilva, Robinson, & Frisbee, 1941). The most recent article concerned motor action in the sense used here (Klapp & Jagacinski, 2011), and another article, by Glencross (1977), focused on the control of skilled movements.…”