Arizona republican., 1905-02-16
rlan's Faulty nemory.

It is a familiar fact that generally
not even two men can agree on the
facts of an incident witnessed by them.
Trials in court have demonstrated ov-
er and over again that eye-witnesscs
of an important happening will hon
estly differ in the most absurd way
in relating what took place. This
failure of men to see correctly and
to remember accurately has at last
led the German scientists to investi-
gate the weakue3s-German scientists
investigate everything.
According to q Berlin paper, DR.. L.
w. Stern of Rreslau recently under
took a series of experiments in the psy-
Geological department of the Univer-
sity of Breslau, which consisted of an
examination in reference to a local
ity'' and expressions of opinion with
reference to an event The results
clearly demonstrated just how vacil-
lating and unreliable the majority of
observations are.
The methods employed in the psy-
Geological investigation of matter of
opinion are generally two; first. the
statements are obtained in reference to
an object, and, second, opinions in ref
erence to an event. In the first expert
ment at Breslau the object was a lee
ture-roOm of the university, in which
twenty-four pupils of various classes
had assembled eight days before. Ten
questions were asked the students; for
example How many windows were in
the room? Were the windows barred
What was the external arrangement of
the entrance door? Was there any
other door except the entrance door?
How many desks were in the ROOM
The result showed that every fifth
statement was positively false; that
when the statements were made IN
der oath the inaccuracy was lessened.
but by no means excluded. These
statements differed greatly with refer
ence to accuracy and varied between
Al and 100 per cent. The average
worth Of the statements of students of
the law faculty was much lower than
those of other students, the percentage
of faults with the law students being
p and in other cases Is; when the
statements were made under oath the
law students had 10 per cent Of error
and the others S.
The second experiment had to do
with an event which occurred during
a class session, and which consisted of
a slight interruption ,and disturbance
of the class exercises. The occurrence
was as follows: A man entered the
room and asked to speak to DR.. Stearn;
he handed the teacher a manuscript,
at the same time speaking to the pro-
fessor; the stranger then asked per-
mission to consult a case of books
which was in the room; took from this
case a book which he read for five
minutes; left the room with the book
in his possession, and was requested
await outside until the close of the
class.
Eight days later the spectators were
asked to describe conscientiously the |
whole proceeding. The reliability to-
be placed in the statements. however.
was small The positive contents of
the reports were one-fourth false; |
statements as to what was said; !
One-third false; in general the
lack of attention on the part
of the class resulted not 50 much
in incomplete as in faulty assertions.
For the whole first half of the pro-
ceeding there resulted such a chaos OF
contradictory statements that if a
judge had merely these statements to
form an opinion by he could not posi-
bly, reach any conclusion. The carry
ing away of the book was reported
correctly only five times out of the to-
tai number of attempts.