The Hans Commission

[telerib]

Thirteen respected scientists and others were gathered together in 1904 by the German government. Their task was to investigate a phenomenom which had captivated the attention of the German people and, indeed, the world. Their subject: Hans, aka "Clever Hans," a horse which could apparently do complicated math.

While the idea of a world government paying real money to study a counting horse amuses me, the Hans commission discovered how the horse did the trick, unbeknownst to its trainer. It watched his body language. That discovery had a profound impact on later experimental design in animal and human studies.

The primary investigator, apparently repeatedly bitten by the horse during testing, was surely pleased to know that it had been worth it.

Comments

[giddysinger.livejournal.com]

And this study is still taught in Intro Psych courses today. In fact, it usually came up at some point in just about every single Psychology class I took in college.

Out of curiosity, how did this come to your attention?

[telerib.livejournal.com]

Let's see... Fark.com headline on some cult suing someone for calling them a cult. Link to cult-busters website, which also addressed those "spirits from beyond" charlatans on TV. Further links from there to articles on cold reading. One of the cold reading articles linked to Wikipedia's entry on Clever Hans, the horse who could cold read.

My other take-away lesson for the day was, "Man, I should really re-read the Cold Read Knack in 7th Sea to see if this is what they meant by it."