Jack M.
Alpert
Current Interests
• The causes and cures of temporal blindness. Cognition based solutions to global problems.
See SKIL research focus:
Historical
Development
• Doing research at General Motors in 1968, I realized that people’s
thinking did not encourage them to wear seat belts. On the contrary their thinking told them
to not wear them. Since
seat belts were about as good at preventing injury as the polio vaccine this
was greatly troubling. I began,
and continue today, to study learning environments that create such distortions
in how a person gathers, processes and values information. The defects in these processes I
call “temporal blindness.”
My research looks for alternative learning environments that prevent
time blindness from becoming part of a person’s thinking toolbox. The goal is to prevent time blindness
in a future generation and thus create a cognitive solution to global problems.
• After leaving auto safety research I thought teaching a person
dynamic systems modeling would solve the time blindness problem. However, I found that while individuals
could improve system understanding through the application of dynamic systems
modeling, this understanding was not sufficient to change decisions where
small, concrete, and immediate benefits had to be sacrificed to avoid larger,
but delayed, abstract liabilities.
• Time blindness had a more fundamental basis. Most people do not
have the ability to give an abstract future condition its full meaning.
This led to the study of cognitive processes that both illuminate abstract
future conditions and create a meaning for them.
Meaning that could compete in the decision arena with meaning provided
to alternative behaviors by cultural transmission and direct experience.
• The work then led to the development of a series of signal flow
graphs that show how memories are created, retrieved, and extended. This collection of graphs I call “Process-Model Learning Theory.”
They form the basis of research into cognition based solutions to global
problems.
Education
• Ph.D. Education, Stanford University, 1982
• MS Engineering, University of Wisconsin,
1975
• BS Mechanical Engineering, University
of Wisconsin, 1968
Experience
1980-present
Laboratory Director, Stanford Knowledge Integration Laboratory (SKIL)
Stanford, California:
• Modeled cognitive processes which facilitate acquisition and
use of knowledge to control system change.
• Developed computer based tests to evaluate cognitive abilities
used in managing changing systems.
• Designed computer based simulations to awaken the naive user
to the special management requirements of changing systems.
• Designing a computer based learning environment to aid development
of these cognitive abilities.
1988-1991
Training manager Cisco systems, Menlo Park, California
• one of 9 managers that grew Cisco from zero to five billion dollars
in stock evaluation in 2.5 years. Most
successful high tech company in the USA. Cisco computers form the central component in the information
super highway.
• doubled program size each 6 months
• developed an international training program that was rated the best technical training ever attended by engineers from, Ford, General Motors, ATT, USX, PSI, Solomon Brothers, IBM, SUN, Morgan Stanley, and Boeing,
1989-1991
Founder board member Bananafish Software, San Francisco, California
• Product design, production planing,
• responsible for financial planning
1987-1988
Facilities Director, Conductus, Sunnyvale, California
(performed applied research on High Temperature Thin Film Super
Conductors
• responsible for acquisition and installation of computer
networks, computers, electronic mail, back up systems, phone systems, voice
mail, and office furniture,
• Hazardous waste management plan for chemicals, for high
temperature thin film super conductors.
Interface with city and state regulators and emergency services.
1978-2003
Invited Lecturer
• “Thinking Skills and Moral
Codes - Ethics Seminar - Stanford University 2003.
• “Temporal inference thinking" Empire State
college, Saratoga, NY.
• “Cognitive Abilities We Don't Have - and Why"
SCG
(Systems Concepts Group) Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) and
BARRET
(Bay area Regional Research into Educational technology
• “When Cognitive Abilities Limit Visual Perception
“NASA-AIMS I-Human Factors group
• “Our Cognitive Abilities Limit the Power of Al"
SRI International Al group
• “Were We Mentally Crippled by the Way We Were Taught?
“UC Berkeley SASAME
• “Dynamic System Memory and Our Control of Social
Systems,"
Stanford
University, Political Science Department.
• “Seeing the Unseen Problems in Temporal Systems,"
Stanford
University, Engineering Economic Systems Department
• “Prediction — Data Trends or System
Structure”
College
of Notre Dame, Economics Department
1976-1982 Research
Assistant, Stanford University School of Education
• Research on acquisition and utilization of temporal knowledge
• The Epidemiology Of Educational Innovation
• The Public's View of Education Through the Media - A Case
Study
1974-1975 Lecturer,
University of Wisconsin, Madison
• Taught two 1 semester courses using discovery learning to show
students the limitations of their analytic tools in understanding changes
within a system and to help students build new tools to understand system
response.
1973-1974
Sloan Research Fellow, University of Wisconsin
• Technology assessments of airfreight and US. Coal resources.
• Dynamic system and automatic control theory applied to social
systems
• Acquisition and utilization of knowledge in temporal systems
1969-1972 Senior Staff
Engineer, Agbabian Associates, El Segundo, California
• Auto safety research and development activities
• Managed a $380,000 program to evaluate air bag restraint
systems
• Designed experimental safety vehicles (occupant injury
reduction and vehicle handling)
• Designed safe passenger crash environment for mass transit
systems
• Designed test equipment for Federal Motor Vehicle Safety
Standards
• Consulted with US.
Department of Transportation, Chrysler, Ford, Eaton, Olin, Rocket
Research, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Garret Air Research, Sierra Engineering,
Fairchild-Hiller Aviation, Raymond Loey and Snaith, and numerous legal firms.
1968-1969 Project
Engineer, Safety Research and Development Laboratory, Engineering Staff
• General Motors Corp., Milford, Michigan
• Designed and implemented full-scale automobile accident
simulation experiments
• Developed performance- driver and general driver training
programs for emergency conditions.
Publications and Working
Papers
• Time Blind - Global problems in
terms of human thought processes – book completion 2002
• Time Blind - The development of
temporal thought processes – book completion 2002
• Learning Pathways to Temporal
Inference – poster session Cognitive Science Conference 97
• 5 Protocols of the Web Mentor, presented at Web Media 98,
Calgary, sponsored by AACE
• Web Mentor, What do we need besides the Web, presented at
Webnet 96, SF., sponsored by AACE
• Why not temporal inference. working paper 96
• Thinking and Survival - Techne - Journal of Technology Studies Volume I Number I, Stanford
University June 1987
• Cognitive Abilities We Don't Have - and Why, working paper 1987
• Process-Model Learning Theory -- Do Current Educational
Practices Inhibit Cognitive Development, working paper 1987
• Can Computers Develop Thinking Abilities, working paper 1984.
• Future Imaging Skills and Sustainable Societies -- An
Investigation of Analytical Skills Required of Constituents of a Sustainable
Society, Ph.D. Dissertation, Stanford University,
1982.
• Hazardous Waste Learning Simulator, User Manual, with P.
Laventhol and R. Beigel,
1982 For the Office of Technology Assessment -- US. Congress.
Published as an appendix to Ph.D.
dissertation.
• Using Interactive Systems Modeling to Understand the
Fundamental Dynamic Structure of One's Environment, Masters Thesis, University of Wisconsin 1975. Also known as On Knowing the Meaning
of Your Decisions -- An Introduction to Foundation Analysis.
• Bumper Compliance Test Procedure Evaluation, Report Number FH- I 1-7480-DARD-1 1970. Report available through Clearinghouse
for Scientific and Technical Information, Springfield Virginia 22151.
• Reports for legal briefs held by court, or out of court
participants. General descriptions
available upon request
• Publications from the GM. Safety Research and Development Laboratory -- confidential. General descriptions available upon
request.
References
• Prof. Seymour Papert, Media Laboratory, MIT
• Prof. Decker Walker, School of Education, Stanford University
• Dean James Adams, School of Engineering, Stanford University
• Dr. Jonas Salk, Salk Institute, La Jolla California
Personal Data
|
(permanent residence) 13617 West 48th Street Shawnee, Kansas
h
913-246-0016 cell 913-708-2554 www.skil.org Email: alpert@skil.org |
|