FAILURE OF HUMAN OBSERVATION

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 7, 23 January 1937, Page 11

FAILURE OF HUMAN OBSERVATION

The Eye Is Unreliable

rfTBE AYERAGE MAN has vague ideas about the work of the scientist. He is inclined to be diffident rather than indifferent, because the scientist labours in a field which is strange country to the average man, and thus, while the latter reads of discoveries with wonder allied with respect, he is apt to put the inatter aside as beyond his knowledge and understanding. There is, however, a spxrit of inquiry abroad, and the rising generation is not quite so quiescent, . and "The Scientist in Action," by Dr. William H. George, M.Sc., Ph.D., of Sheffield University, endeavoui's to explain how the scientikt does his job and his methods of work. He admits, for example, that "the eye yields far more data in scientifio research than does any other single sense organ," but proves that the eye nevertheless is "unreliable," and Dr. George quotes .an "example taken from au incident which happened at a Congress of Psychology at Gottingen." • * * "Not far 'from the hall in which tbe meetings wero held," says Dr. George, "a public fete with masked ball was taking place. During one of the meetings) the tfSor of the hall was suddenly opened and in rushed a clown chased by a negro carrying a revolver.. After a scuffle in the middle of the room the clown fell to the ground, the uegro leapt upon him, fired the . revolver, and then hoth' rushed out of the hall. The whole interruption lasted about twenty secondsr. "As soon as it was over, the President, explaining that there was sure to be a* judicial inquiry, asked those. present to write there and then a report of what they had just seen happen. Forty reports were sent in, all of them written at once whxlst the incident was fresh in the^ mind. AlIhough the observers did not at the timo know it, the whole incident had heen previously arranged, carefully rehearsed, and photographed. "When the reports were examined it was found that only one of them had less than 20 per cent. of mistakes about the principal facts, fourteen bad 20 per cent. to 40 per cent. of mistakes, twelve from 40 per cent. to 50 per cent., whilst thirteen had more than 50 per cent Not only were mistakes made, but purely fictitious details were introduced, so that in twenty-four aecounts 10 per cent. of the details were pure inventions. Six accounts contained fewer inventions

than. this, hui ten included even meri pure fiction, "It will be noted that th# whole incident was brief, lasting only twenty seconds, the details were so striking as to arrest the attention o£ almost any speetator, and these" details were im» mediately written down by men accustomed to scientifio observation. ■*"' . ;• 4 "Yet in spite of these favourable conditions, only six of the forty reports were admissxble as approximately correct accounts of the facts. What is especxally to be noted is the quite uu» conscious. substitution by traiixed obser--vers of'pure fiction for fact ... . "Two days before writing thes* words," said Dr. George, "I had a direct experience of the difficulty of correctly reporting a short incident which happened in front of my eyes. I wa© driving a motor-car in a town.. well known to me, and had been discussing with my passenger the unreliability of th© evidence of eye-witnesses. At a crossing which was very familiar to, both of us we noted that, contrary to our nsual experience, the' crcossing was quite deserted, no other traffic being visible. "The car was moving very elowly, and we tfere both at the time Iooking abead and not talking. Suddenly we saw what seemed to be a collisioa between a boy walking on the road and a man riding a bicycle. , Th© . incident seemed suddenly to appear in the centre of .the field of vision, where there was at the timo apparently no other object of interest. The incident was sufficiently far from the motor-car to be quite unalarming, and yet sufficiently near to be very clearly seen. Yet when we had passed the crossing we each found tfiat we could giiv© no ao count of what happened. "All my passeuger noted was that the cyclist nearly collided with a motor. which later appeared on the right-hand side of the road. T could only be sure that I noted the boy getting up from the road and stepping on to the pave» ment, whilst the cyclist was 'still making a very wohbling crossing from the left side to the right-hand side of the road before he. actually got off the cycle. ' "Thete was no reasonable grounds for supposing other than that a correet * optical image was formed on my refiha. ' The* details wero hot too "quick to be followed by eye or, at least, they were , not quick enough to give a blurred image on the retina. > 4 "It is doubtful if I could jnstly be saxd to be paying no attention to the • incident, for my attention was at the time directed to that part of the, road, and yet I found that I was quite unahi© to say what had happened there. Moreover, I had no motive whatever for suppressing any knowledge I may have had of the incident, for the accident vras so slight that it was not even necessary for me to etop the car. "Here, then, are two definite examples of human failure to see what takes % place before our very eys .... Good eyesight and good hearing were in use. Moreover, these examples are typical of human observation in everyday life. Why is the eye-witness so unreliable?'*.