Animals and humans can learn to read extremely subtle changes in people's behaviour which can unwittingly give away information.
Around the end of the 1880's a horse named Hans was taught maths by his owner. After a very long training the horse was able to give the correct answers to mathematical questions by tapping his hoof on the ground. Hans could even perform without his trainer present. For example, if someone asked "What is the square root of 16?", then Hans would tap his foot four times. Hans' owner really believed the horse could perform mathematic calculations and there was no tricks involved.
Hans became famous and was a mystery to audiences and scientists, until a phycologist realised that the horse could not answer questions if the person asking the questions did not know the answer.
It turned out that somehow Hans was able to read almost imperceptable changes in the behaviour of the person asking the question - tapping his foot until some unconcious behavioural cue told himto stop. Somebody that didn't know the answer did not provide such cues and so the horse was not able to perform the calculations.
If Hans was able to read such suble signals, such as tensing of the body, then maybe this is how psychics are also able to read people.
Read about the story of Clever Hans.
Last edited by cyph33r on Sat Jun 10, 2006 10:35 pm; edited 1 time in total
Around the end of the 1880's a horse named Hans was taught maths by his owner. After a very long training the horse was able to give the correct answers to mathematical questions by tapping his hoof on the ground. Hans could even perform without his trainer present. For example, if someone asked "What is the square root of 16?", then Hans would tap his foot four times. Hans' owner really believed the horse could perform mathematic calculations and there was no tricks involved.
Hans became famous and was a mystery to audiences and scientists, until a phycologist realised that the horse could not answer questions if the person asking the questions did not know the answer.
It turned out that somehow Hans was able to read almost imperceptable changes in the behaviour of the person asking the question - tapping his foot until some unconcious behavioural cue told himto stop. Somebody that didn't know the answer did not provide such cues and so the horse was not able to perform the calculations.
If Hans was able to read such suble signals, such as tensing of the body, then maybe this is how psychics are also able to read people.
Read about the story of Clever Hans.
Last edited by cyph33r on Sat Jun 10, 2006 10:35 pm; edited 1 time in total
