Download Application of artificial intelligence in military aptitude tests

EDUCATION
AARMS
Vol. 6, No. 4 (2007) 785–790
Application of artificial intelligence
in military aptitude tests
ATTILA KIRÁDY
Miklós Zrínyi National Defence University, Budapest, Hungary
The projective methods for the testing of personalities are useful means in meeting the
requirements arising at military aptitude tests, such as indicating aggression,
identifying stress tolerance, emotional instability, impulse control or aptitude to use
weapons. Projective drawing tests, however, proved difficult to process but a
computerised system has lately been developed that is capable of producing theoretical
models of an expert's cognitive processes. As an important achievement of the research
in artificial intelligence, the expert system has the fundamental objective to model
human thinking as well as supplementing and assisting natural intelligence. The
development of a special version of the expert system that can be applied in various
areas of the military would introduce a completely new, modern testing method,
currently in prototype state, which may significantly extend the range of testing
opportunities used to date.
Application fields of projective tests in the aptitude tests
used by the Hungarian Army
Aptitude, as defined in psychology, means the total of the general and special abilities
and skills required for the performance of the specific activity in the special position.
The aim of the aptitude tests applied in the Army is to predict the expected
performance; the category of predictive validity expresses the extent of this
performance. The test aims to explore the causes and consequences of the differences
between the individual characteristics from the aspect of the human and work factors.
The tests can focus on the exploration of performance, skills or abilities, the last being
the easiest factor to measure in practice. In aptitude tests, therefore, the different
abilities and personal characteristics are analyzed and compared to the critical values
typical of the specific work position.
The requirements above are basically met by the various aptitude test procedures,
including intelligence tests, attention test with instruments or paper and pen, personality
questionnaire, aptitude tests for special positions, career motivation questionnaire,
biography indicator, anamnesis, and exploration. There are, however, certain general
Received: October 18, 2007
Address for correspondence:
ATTILA KIRÁDY
Miklós Zrínyi National Defence University
P. O. Box 15, H-1581 Budapest, Hungary
E-mail: [email protected]
A. KIRÁDY: Artificial intelligence in military aptitude tests
and specific requirements (e.g. aggression detection, stress tolerance definition,
emotional instability measurement, impulse control definition or aptitude to use
weapons) which can be measured more efficiently with the use of other testing methods
or which can be supplemented with other methods. Such procedures are the projective
personality methods including projective drawing tests.
As opposed to the scales used in questionnaires which always only show whether
the given person is characterized by the given dimension (and thus are called narrow
scale testing procedures), the projective drawings reveal certain characteristics which
are not included in the questions, which were not even thought of by the examiners or
known by the examined persons. The projective drawings, in many cases, open up
“windows” to the deep layers of the personality, which suddenly reveal the deepest,
most interior and most fundamental layers as well.
The projective assessment method proves efficient, due to its non-verbal nature, with
less educated persons and those with a low socio-cultural background, who often show
weak performance on various aptitude test because of their poor ability of verbal
expression. (As the sociological surveys find that the majority of the military personnel are
mainly financially forced to join, a significant number of these persons are under-educated
and the development of a new testing method may be an excellent solution for them.)
The method can also be efficiently used to screen reserved and timid applicants. In
these tests the generally resistant and defensive persons are also less able to conceal
their real personality in their drawings. The reason is that verbal expression is easier to
control than the projective level, the level of locomotors impulses, locomotors
expression and formal-structural features of drawings.
Theory of the Expert System for Projective Drawings (ESPD)
The new heuristic analytic model has been developed by the research team led by Dr.
Zoltán Vass (Károli University, Department of Psychology) to manage the complexity
of drawing characteristics and to process and interpret the data obtained in the
projective drawing tests. The most practical use of the model is to include it in a
computerized expert system (ESPD) (Vass, 2000a, 2000b, 2001a, 2001c, 2002, 2004a,
2004b). The aim of the research above is to create the theoretical model of the expert
cognitive processes. Although there are tests available which examine the typical
cognitive faults of psychologists (e.g. inclination to respond, halo and Barnum effect,
illusory correlations and perceptual illusions: Bingham, 1939; Meehl, 1960; Di
Clementi and Handelsman, 1987; Chapman and Chapman, 1967; Lueger and Petzel,
1979; Kurtz and Garfield, 1978; Garb, 1989), the computerized model of the diagnostic
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thinking of psychologists is yet to be developed. The expert system is capable of
reproducing at least a part of this complex process of perception and conclusion.
The expert system belongs to the important achievements of the research for
artificial intelligence, which is an interdisciplinary science with the basic aim to model
human thinking and to supplement and assist natural intelligence. The current focus of
the research for artificial intelligence is not on solutions to general problems but on the
application of special heuristics and on solutions to problems requiring domain specific
knowledge.
Similarly to human experts, the expert (or advisory) systems use expert knowledge
to treat a specific set of problems, provide intelligent advice or make and justify
intelligent decisions. The expert systems are computer programs which can apply the
definable rules of the problem solving strategy of human experts to solve certain
specified tasks.
The expert systems typically consist of a knowledge base (symbolic representation
of the knowledge of the world), a “conclusion machine” (component to manage rules
and recognize correlations) and a user interface (computer program). The benefits of the
expert systems include reproducibility, objectiveness, unlimited knowledge
representation capacity and transparent conclusion strategy; the limitations mainly
include the lack of “common sense”, creativity and the problems of the recognition of
its own limits of competence.
The system performs the complete interpretation of the drawings, which means that
it reproduces only the perceptive and cognitive processes which can be performed by
human experts. The method is called heuristic analysis. Heuristics are generally defined
in relation to algorithms. Algorithms are problem solving methods including clearly
defined steps which are in a constant order and which must always be performed in an
unchanged manner. In contrast, heuristics are problem solving methods in which the
steps of the process can be changed; the order can be modified with certain sections
omitted and new ones inserted. The advantage of the application of algorithms is high
speed, reliability and the feature that they always and surely lead to the solution (in the
case of tasks which can be solved using algorithms). The drawback, however, is that it
cannot be applied in certain cases and that, in the case of a high number of possible
solutions, the combinatory search of the specific possible solutions can be an extremely
slow process. The advantage of heuristics is that it can immediately “jump” onto the
solution; therefore it proves to be (especially in the case of complex problems) much
faster than algorithms; in addition, there exist certain problems which can only be
solved using heuristics for lack of applicable algorithms. The drawback of heuristics is
that it is less precise and does not always lead to a solution.
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The knowledge base of the developed expert system contains 2055 psychological
interpretations and 1613 diagnostic definitions. One part of the diagnostic definitions
represents personal psychological knowledge (727 knowledge item); the other part
represents specific clinical psychological and psychopathological knowledge defined
according to the DSM-IV-R system of definitions (886 knowledge item).
The ESPD system ensures psychometric reliability in a completely different manner
from the traditional ways. This difference lies in the allowed errors made by the
examiner in the selection of the relevant features for coding; the program is capable of
correcting as high as 30 percent of coding errors. It is possible to correct coding errors
as one coded item is in a very weak association relationship with the related
psychological meaning: the strength of the specific associations can only be between
1–10%. As the threshold to the output (entry criterion) is 30 percent certainty at the very
end of the analysis performed by the program, only the items whose certainty is higher
than the threshold can remain; a meaning can only be above the threshold level if it
appropriately fits the gradually built up total image, the semantic Gestalt.
The heuristics of the program recognize and neutralize the items selected by error in
certain phases of the analysis. The items which are contradictory or which are not in
semantic relationship are filtered and their certainty factor is reduced. The analysis
therefore is basically an analysis of patterns or configurations performed with the use of
1627 configurations, 122 counter indications, 34 pathogenetic causal relationships and
90 heuristic scales stored in the knowledge base. Each step of the development of the
final semantic Gestalt is documented, transparent and controllable.
The analysis of configurations also requires the anamnesis of the examined person.
In the drawing analysis the following anamnesis variables are used to define the
drawing characteristics in the context:
• General data of anamnesis (age, gender, general level of integration, socioeconomic status, artistic skills, width and intensiveness of the emotional spectrum);
• Observations on the examined person by the examiner concerning expressive
behaviour (build, temper, appearance, non-verbal expression: voice, eye contact,
handshake, posture, walk);
• Special features of case history (e.g. family, physical or sexual harassment,
suicidal attempt or considerations, physical appearance, social behaviour, sexual
behaviour, specific symptoms, psychiatric anamnesis);
• Previous diagnosis (if any).
The expert system includes a total number of 145 anamnesis features with attributed
meanings, it is however not possible to describe them in this summary.
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After the collection of the required information the next step of the interpretation is
the search for the configuration of variables. The configuration definition used in the
analysis was developed by the author in the research activity carried out between 2000
and 2004 (Vass, 2004a, 2004b). The configuration was defined as a variable pattern,
with a certainty factor, attributed to a specific psychological meaning. The value of this
certainty factor can range between 0 and 100, the meaning is similar to a percentage but
the applied mathematical function is different (the total of two certainty factors, for
example, will not increase in a linear manner). The certainty factor used in the research
shows the “strength” of the interpretation, or in other words, the likelihood that the
given psychological meaning is really characteristic of the examined person.
The most important feature of the configuration operated as above is that it only
“begins operation”, that is it only increases the initial certainty factor, if at least three
items are simultaneously displayed from the pattern of variables attributed to the
specific meaning. It is a general rule that the higher number of items is perceived in a
given configuration, the higher is the certainty factor of the pattern meaning. The
findings revealed that the configurations defined as above allow efficient operation in a
computerized model. The combination of the information contents of several
configurations is possible using defined algorithms and heuristics.
Practical application of the ESPD system in military aptitude tests
In practice this means that after the anamnesis is recorded and the projective test is
performed, the examiner selects the items from a list which he considers important to
characterize the examined person. The list used to characterize the examined person
includes the programmed variables in a logically transparent hierarchic classification.
Each drawing feature includes one definition and 20 sample drawings by various other
persons (currently a total of 5343 sample drawings). If the examiner has previously
studied the system, our findings show that about 4–5 minutes is required to analyze the
items in 5–6 drawings (drawings by the same person of a house, a tree, and an animal, a
human and free choice).
Summary
The development of a special version of the expert system that can be applied in various
areas of the military would introduce a completely new, modern testing method,
currently in prototype state, which may significantly extend the range of testing
opportunities used to date.
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References
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Internet source: www.zoltanvass.hu
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