FAILURE OF HUMAN OBSERVATION

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 19, 23 January 1937, Page 16 (Supplement)

FAILURE OF HUMAN OBSERVATION

The Eye Is Unreliable

JfTHE AVERAGE 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 thu*. while the latter reads of discoveries with wonder allied w’ith respect, he is apt to put the matter aside as beyond his knowledge and understanding. There is, however, a spirit of inquiry abroad, and the rising generation is not quite so quiescent, aud “The Scientist in Action,” by Dr. William H. George, M.Sc., Ph.D., of Sheffield University, endeavours to explain how the scientist does his job and his methods of work. He admits, for example, that “the eye yields lar more data in scientific research than does any other single sense organ,” but proves that the eye nevertheless is “unreliable,” and Dr. George quotes an “example taken from an incident which happened at a Congress of Psychology at Gottingen.” • « • “Not far from the hall in which the meetings were held,” says Dr. George, “a public fete with masked ball was taking place. During one of tho meetings the door 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 tho room the clown fell to the ground, th© negro leapt upon him, fired the revolver, and then both rushed out of the hall. The whole interruption lasted about twenty seconds “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 whilst tho incident was fresh in the mind. Although the observers did not at the time know it, the whole incident had been previously arranged, carefully rehearsed, and photographed. “When the reports were examined it was found that only one of them bad less than 20 per cent, of mistakes about the principal facte, fourteen had 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 accounts 10 per cent, of the details were pure inventions. Bix accounts contained fewer inventions

than this, but ten included even mors pure fiction. “It will be noted that the whole incident was brief, lasting only twenty seconds, th e details were so striking as to arrest the attention of almost any spectator, and these details were immediately written down by men accustomed to scientific observation. Yet in spite of these favourable conditions, only six of the forty report® were admissible as approximately correct accounts of the facts. What is especially to be noted is the quit© unconscious substitution by trained observers of pure fiction for fact .... “Two days before writing these words,” said Dr. George, “1 had a direct experience of the difficulty of correctly reporting a short incident which happened in front of my eyes. 1 was driving a motor-car in a town well known to me, and had been discussing with m> passenger the unreliability of the evidence of eye-witnesses. At a crossing which was very familiar to both ot us we noted that, contrary to our usual experience, the crcossing wai quite deserted, no other traffic being visible. “Ihe car was moving very slowly and wo were both at the time looking ahead and not talking. Suddenly we saw what seemed to be a collision between a boy walking on the road and a man riding a bicycle. The incident Miemed suddenly to appear in the centre of the field of vision, where thir® was at the tune apparently no other object of interest. The incident was sufficiently far Irom the motor-car to he quite unalarining, and yet sufficiently near to be very clearly seen. Yet when we had passed the crossing we each found that we could giv® no account of what happened. “All my passenger noted was that the cyclist nearly collided with a motor which later appeared on the right-hand side of the road. 1 could only he cure that I noted the boy getting up fiom tho road aud stepping ou to the pavement, whilst the cyclist was still making a very wobbling crossing from the leit side to the right-hand side of the road before he actually got off the cycle. “There was no reasonable grounds tor supposing other than that u con i .-c optical image was lorrned on my retina. The details were not too quick to ba followed by eye or, at least, they were not quick euougb to give a blurred image on the retina. “lt is doubt!ul if 1 could justly tie said to be paying no attention to the incident, tor my attention was at the time directed to that part of the road, and yet 1 found that 1 w r as quite unable to say what cad happened there. Moreover, 1 had no motive whatever lor suppressing any knowledge 1 may Lave had of the incident, lor £he accident was so slight that it w r as not even necessary for me to 6top the car. “Here, then, are two definite examples of human failure to see what taken place before our very eys . . . Good eyesight and good hearing were in use. Moreover, these example© are typical of human observation in everyday life. Why is the eye-witness so unreliable?’*