Understanding the factors which influence the processing of information seems fundamental for the clinical psychiatrist and behavioral scientist. Practical problems stemming from information overload, underload, and off-balance load are seen daily in the hospital and clinic. From the postoperative patient isolated, enfeebled, subjected to the monotony of respirator and cardiac monitor to the sensitive child bombarded with conflicting instructions and competing expectations, information dys-load merits specific consideration. And to those caught up in the exploration of extreme environments, these matters are of daily and vital interest.
Systematic investigation of these matters has been a postwar phenomenon stimulated by the technology which extends and strains man's physiological capacities. But persons wishing to pursue the reports of delusions of grandiosity while scuba diving, hallucinations while immobilized, or noncoercive group brain-washing techniques, have often found the information anecdotal, scattered, or contradictory.
Start with this book if these matters