From: altar@beaufort.sfu.ca (Ted Wayn Altar)
Subject: Perception/memory, References, Clocks
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 19:06:23 GMT


THE QUESTION

The question has been ask as to how can Uri Geller repair en mass
from a  distant TV station the broken watches and clocks of
people's watching the show in their own homes?

In fact, with our recent nutritional discussions about whose
right on what and the importance of cited references versus a
mere appeal to personal authority, I think the answer to this
question might at least exemplify how we should similarly
approach in an analytic manner some of the questions pertaining
to the claims for or against VEGETARIANISM [the emphasis is to
stress that the following discussion is relevant after all ;-) ]
Indeed, there is an interesting psychology of perception/memory
and inferred belief behind this particular Geller phenomenon.


A QUICK TOUR INTO THE FALLIBILITY OF PERCEPTION/MEMORY

We should always remind ourselves that this is a fallible world
populated by fallible people.  The most fallible being those who
refuse to acknowledge their fallibility (as Tolstoy said,
"conceit is incompatible with understanding").  So, let us start
to recognize our limitations so that we might better guard
against faulty inferences due to those limitations.  Consider the
following example:

               VISIT PARIS
               IN THE
               THE SPRING

What's wrong with the above sentence?  Did you right away notice
the two "the's".  Why not?  Let take another example:

   line one    Johnny, do you know your A 13 Cs ?

   line two    Can you count from 1, 2, . . . 12, 13, 14

This example doesn't work too well on a computer display, but if
the above was handwritten, you would tend to read line one as A,
B, C and line two as 12, 13 14.  The 13 is the same stimulus in
both lines but the implicit context of A B C tends to have us
organized and interpret the 13 as B in line one and as a number
in line 2.

Now, consider the following example:

     Simply Count The F's In The Following Sentence:

                  FINISHED FILES ARE THE
               RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC
                STUDY COMBINED WITH THE
                EXPERIENCE OF MANY YEARS.

Well, it turns out that there are 6 f's in the above sentence!
Try again.  Most people will count either 3, 4, or 5.

Why is this?  Well, though the routinization of our reading
skills we have arrived at a happy point where we automatically
group small word units as singular whole parts of a sentence.
Further down the hierarchy, we have also learned to process
letters in small words like "of" as a single unit.  No need to
"read" the individual letters; we comprehend the word at a
glance.  In addition, we automatically pronounce the f in "of" as
a "v" sound.  This enables quick reading, but note that we now
simply skip over seeing the individual "f"s in the "of" words and
partly because we don't even hear them as a "f".

We no longer "see", as it were, the individual trees due to our
higher level skill of being able to see the forest at a glance.
In other words, due to our habit of how we see or have routinely
interpret what there is to be seen, we are essentially "seeing"
what we EXPECT to see. Hence, maybe we should not say that
"seeing is believing" but rather, "BELIEVING IS SEEING"  :-)

I've overstated the idea so as to make clear the important notion
that memory and belief fundamentally influence even the very act
of seeing itself.  Indeed, unless we have some expectation of
what to look for and comprehend, we may simply not see what there
is in "reality" to be seen and comprehended.  Astronomers, x-ray
technicians, radar operators, etc., have to explicitly learn how
to see or read what there is to be seen, from their sometimes
very fuzzy visual displays.

The role of memory in what we see is thus intertwined.  Now,
consider further the role of memory in our recall of what WAS
seen.


             ^                    ^                    ^
           /   \                /   \                /   \
         /       \            /       \            /       \
       /           \        /           \        /           \
       ------               ----------           -------------

        immediately        1 month later         3 months later

If we show a group of people the first incomplete
triangle, they will immediately recall it as an incomplete
triangle.  But notice what happens with the passing of time.  If
instead, people are asked to recall the triangle one month
later, on average most people have begun to fill in some of the
triangle.  If we had waited for 3 months, most people recall
having seen what they thought was a completely solid lined
triangle.

Notice then, how the role of memory works to reconstruct (or
`redintegrate') in the direction of increased SIMPLIFICATION,
SYMMETRY and FAMILIARITY.

Ok, the point of these examples is that perception and memory are
not passive video camera-like faculties, but are actively
CONSTRUCTIVE and RECONSTRUCTIVE.  It makes sense that given the
limits of our cognitive capacities our brains have evolved to be
marvelously efficient to make use of what it has to work with in
order to achieve quite what is quite a lot.  We can't remember
everything in complete and ridiculously minute, trivial detail.
Do you remember when and where you first learnt that a whale was
a mammal?  Probably not unless there was something particularly
special about that otherwise prosaic event of vocabulary
building.  With respect to our narrative (episodic) memories, it
is the salience, theme or gist of what has happened that is
remembered, while the rest is kind of filled in.  Much of what
was "insignificant" or "irrelevant is later simply forgotten and
might be reconstructed falsely as occurring when in fact it did
not.  A classic reading on this is Frederick Bartlett's
"Remembering" (1932).

Hence, false, skewed or idealized memories ("paramnesia") are
quite common.   Expectations, attitudes, needs, and yes,
prejudices and value, all affect memory at input (attentional
filtering) and at recall.  There tends to be a leveling,
sharping-in and paring-out so as to increase the coherence,
simplicity, dramatic narration of what is be remembered
and "known".


BACK TO THE CONFERENCE ON VEGETARIANISM

What is the point of all this?  What relevance does it have to
this conference on vegetarianism?

Well, even textbooks (especially tertiary or low-level secondary
sources) may over-emphasize or simplify the effects while
underplaying the variance or complexity of some nutritional
causal story.  Aside the convention of such sources to simplify
the story in any event, this simplification may even be quite
inadvertent and unintended simply because that is how our
reconstructive memories will perform.

Hence, the importance of ultimately seeking out the primary
sources, in addition to the importance of showing due respect to
the intelligence of one's readers by citing those sources.

Due to even the best trained mind having this tendency towards
simplification, it is important for everyone to re-check those
sources to make sure one has it right.  Even if all we are going
to do is provide an abstraction and simplification of some
material, it is still important to check and recheck the accuracy
of those particulars from which one is going to base a generality
upon.

In the end, those who don't cite their sources and maybe recheck
them on occasion are not only lazy but simply more prone to
paramnesia or error.  Worst, they are even less likely to admit
it, insulating themselves as it were, from disconfirmation of
their self-serving beliefs about things (this is a "fact"!) and
themselves (I'm never wrong, only he/she is and completely so!).



BACK TO EXPLAINING URI GELLER'S MASS WATCH REPAIRS

First of all, much that is of interest scientifically may not
actually take place in the lab nor be observed repeatedly over
time upon demand.  A supernova burst having occurred near the
sidereal vicinity of star M42 and now being observed today so
many thousands of years later is a one time event not occurring
in the laboratory nor repeatable upon demand.  I think
anomalistic phenomena needs to be explained and not mere
dismissed as irrelevant if it can't be reproduced in the lab upon
demand.  This is not to disparage laboratory research.

Now, consider the three following questions:

     If Geller can perform this one authentic psychokinetic feat,
      then why did he resort to faking the spoon bending?

     Why repair watches and not something else, like lightbulbs?

     And if only timepieces, why only mechanical ones and not,
      say, digital watches?

Asking what he CAN'T do can be as revealing and interesting as
knowing what he apparently can do.  If Geller can reactivate the
components of a watch, why not a car engine?  Well, you might
say, it takes much larger changes and movements of matter to get
that old car running.  Ok, then why not the digital watch were
only mere molecules of silicone might be all that is needed
to reactivate the watch?

Well, I think you are probably getting the picture that with
mechanical timepieces it should not be surprising that they may
well "spontaneous" start working again.  That is why we first try
tapping them and rewinding them when they mysteriously stop
working.  Why, then, should it be so surprising that if an
initial attempt to start up a watch doesn't work, a later attempt
would not?  During the interim, some thermal expansion or
contraction could have increased the spring tension to overcome
what might have been some jamming of a cog from loose and worn
components or dirt inside the mechanisms.  Dust and oxidation can
undergo some changes with time, and a jammed mechanism could
later be jarred back into operation by the right movement.  What
was earlier gumming the delicate mechanical works could have
dried out with time, and so on and so forth.  Ok, watches
stopping only to later start working again, is not a mysterious
phenomena.

Ah, but you say, how could so many watches start working again at
the same time?  Here is where the interesting psychology of
perception and narrative memory comes in.

What happen?  Geller announces on TV that he is going to get your
great grandma's ticker working again (not her heart!), and what
do people do?  They start rummaging through the drawers and boxes
to find that old watch long abandoned because it wasn't
"working".  Do we remember why it wasn't working with complete
accuracy?  Maybe not.  This is an important detail, one that is
often long forgotten.  Maybe it was only keeping "irregular time"
or that it really was working but a newer watcher replaced that
one long ago.  In any case, let us say that we do accurately
remember the watch actually having stopped dead for whatever
reason.  Now, here we are, taking out the old watch again,
reheating it in our excited hands as we return to the TV.  We
hold the watch or place it on the table, and guess what, it is
working!!  But have we not handled the watch?  Have we not moved
it, inadvertently or advertently jarring it?  Did you not cause a
thermal change by holding it in one's excited hands?  All these
small details are deemed insignificant because we assume the
false narrative explanation provided by Uri Geller.  Indeed, some
and maybe all of these kinds of details are simply forgotten for
the more clean and parsimonious narrative that as the watch lay
on the table, it started ticking at the exact moment Uri Geller
said it would.  But he never does specify any one particular
moment.

Now, even if this naturally occurring and scientifically
explicable "spontaneous recovery" only occurs with say 1/10,000
watches, then via the miracle of TV reaching maybe hundreds of
thousands people, it is not at all surprising that many people
phone in excited about great granny's watch ticking again?  The
TV show reports all these reports of watches ticking again, but
it does NOT report how many more watches never started working.

Still not convinced?  Well, in one the references I cited, two
professed NON-psychics replicated Uri Geller's feat!  I believe
it was Marks and Kammin who on a radio show mimic Geller's
procedures and guess what?  Yes, people started phoning in with
miraculously repaired watches!

Ok, if two NON-psychics can perform Geller's feat, then what is
happening?  Maybe the sheer belief of the viewers/listeners
themselves telekinetically activated the watches?  Possibly, but
the evidence to date doesn't support this hypothesis.  In either
case, Uri Geller IS four-flusher and mountebank.  Some of the
best tricks occur with very simple legerdemain indeed, but one
that exploits our error prone perceptions, memory and belief.

                                               ted