Acilio,
Sorry not to reply sooner. I'm interested in this inquiry, but only as
observer not serious participant. It's something - i.e. the organization of
memory - I know, and have thought little about.
But I think your idea of online experimentation is a good one, (especially
if you could perhaps add a counter for common responses to make it more
interesting for participants), and worth pursuing. There does seem to be a
vast field here for experimentation, overlapping with the v. diverse
psychological studies of conceptualisation - exploring, say, what are
people's first associated examples of given general terms like vegetable,
fruit etc or even "hit". And it might be productive to explore whole streams
of free/spontaneous association - e.g. cat- dog -rain etc. Perhaps patterns
might emerge that would reveal how information is "racked"in our brains.
Mike,
If you are interested in this line of inquiry, maybe we could devise
some on-line experimentation in the line of the ESP Game to find out
if any common patterning really takes place. We would need some
working hypothesis. My guess is that socio-cultural factors, like
native language, play a more significant role in the emergence of
common patterning, if it take place, than some fundamental property of
memory organization. So demographic information would be needed o
verify this possibility.
The goal of the game should be carefully thought out, though. The
difference between "naming the first thing to come to your mind" and
"trying to match someone else choice" certainly would affect the
result of the experiment.
[]'s
Acilio
On Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 8:24 PM, Mike Tintner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
Acilio,
Yes I'd checked on mentalism. And I take all your points. But that there
is
any shared culture here suggests that there must be some substance to the
claims, which of course would need scientific investigation, if none has
been done already.
I find this stuff exciting precisely because a large part of scientific
discovery is finding clues - and often in unusual places. Darwin, for
example, looked to the scientifically unusual area of breeding for clues
about evolution. Mentalism may offer valid clues here. *If* there are
common
patterns of association, then they should reveal something about the
organization of memory.
Mike,
Just some clarification. When a mention "mentalism" i refer to the
performing arts, not the brach of psychologic studies.
The known facts I mentioned are found in the mentalist literature and
confirmed only by the experience of the mentalists and magicians of
that community. Often they claim to base their acts on scientific
studies but fail to present any bibliografical reference. As I've
never been able to track down a single controlled study to confirm
these claims, I deem any number (usually very high) they give to be
bogus ;) Also those tricks usually are not presented in the crude form
as on the video. A good performer usually have a fallback plan for
when the averaging fails.
My reply just a attempt to alert you that most of those tricks are
based on chance and that I think it isn't a good idea to base
discussions on properties of mind on them. Of course, it could inspire
some controlled experimentation on association.
--
[]´s
Acilio.
On Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 4:30 PM, Mike Tintner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
Acilio,
Many thanks for a v. informative reply. But as you indicate it's why
people
have these associations that is the most interesting part. (Do you BTW
have
or know of any percentages attached to these strongest associations?)
All of this is interesting because it begs fundamental questions about
how
memory/information is organized in the brain, and recalled. These common
associations seem to me to present tantalising clues.
With "animal...in jungle" - "lion" seems to me likely to come up because
probably the most *frequently* associated animal.
But I'm not sure whether that applies to the rest. I wouldn't imagine
"carrot" to be the most commonly mentioned vegetable.
One possibility that occurs is that carrot and celery may be the simplest
*shaped* veg.
Perhaps "7" is the most common single digit, because it's the emotionally
*favourite* number.
But I wouldn't imagine again that "37" fits any of the above criteria.
Are there any speculations or theories about this, and does anyone have
alternative ideas here?
Acilio:
My question is: how do they know your vegetable association?
And if I told you that if you didn't answer "CARROT", odds are you
choose "CELERY"?
Associating the result experiment with the math questions is the only
association taking place here. It's caused by the distracting
suggestion on the title ""Freaky Math Trick".
What is going on is averaging. It's a well kown fact used in the
mentalism community that most english speaking people when asked to
the first thing that comes into their mind when you say; 'vegetable'
will say 'carrot', if not they will say 'celery'.
These are other known facts:
- when asked to name a single digit number, most peoplewill pick 7.
- when asked to name a 2 digit odd number under 50, with no two digits
the same, most people will pick 37.
- when asked to pick a 2 digit even number between 50 and 99, with no
two digits the same,most people will pick 68.
Try this experiment: repeat the same procedure of the video, but
instead of asking for a vegetable, ask for an 'an animal that lives in
the jungle'. Most people will answer 'Lion' even though lions don't
live in the jungle.
The sequence math questions are used just to habituate people to a
simple pattern questions, to clear their minds of any other thing they
may be thinking of and allows the averaging to work. You coul use any
other simple sequence for that.
Now, why people on average choose those answers is a whole other story
--
[]´s
Acilio.
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