-=> Quoting Paul Andinach to Michael Holt <=-
 PA> Speaking from my position in the middle of a Cognitive Psychology
 PA> unit, the answer is: not necessarily. Anyone can misremember,
 PA> especially if whoever helped them recover the memories subtly hinted
 PA> that it had to be aliens.
(Do you realize that admitting you're in a Cognitive Psychology class
makes you an Expert?  Alas!)    ;)
That was my point.  No one here hasn't heard the old tale about the
shooting in the psych class.
 PA> (Brief pause for a related example: Studies have shown that an
 PA> eyewitness' memory can be changed significantly by something as
 PA> small as the word used to describe the event. People who are asked
 PA> what happened when the car "crashed into" the wall remember a far
 PA> more violent event than people who are asked what happened when
 PA> the car "contacted" the wall.)
I hadn't heard of this, but it makes complete sense.  
 PA> Another problem with sorting the real abductees from the other ones
 PA> is the "It must have been real! I remember it so clearly!" syndrome.
 PA> Often the clarity and the detail of abductees' memories are cited as
 PA> evidence that the event was real, even by their psychiatrists, who
 PA> should know better.
The bottom line, it would appear, is that all the reports must be given
equal weight until proven otherwise, unless all of them are discarded.
 PA> There's a famous experiment where people were asked to describe, in
 PA> as much detail as possible, events from their childhood. After a few
 PA> repetitions spaced out over time, most of the subjects could remember
 PA> every event in detail - even the ones that had been made up by the
 PA> experimenters, which had never actually happened. And many of them
 PA> refused to believe that some of these "memories" were fake. ("It must
 PA> have been real! I remember it so clearly!")
I've seen exactly this in my time spent in the company of multiple 
ersonality
folks.   One of them will convince the other that they share some experience,
and it will thereafter be recalled with great accuracy.  Even when it's not
true, and demonstratably impossible.
 MH> Does psych-logical problems always preclude the transmission of
 MH> relaible data?
 PA> Lessee, now... drat, I'm not scheduled for Abnormal Psychology
 PA> until September.
We'll wait for your Expert Advice!     :)
This may be one of the few times when a scientific study WANTED to have
a smaller sample!
 
 PA> Randall Garrett once wrote that God will answer anything if you ask
 PA> Him the right question - and that the most reliable way of asking is
 PA> to go and look for the answer yourself. :)
Good point, and well said.  Where do we look?
  
Michael
 PA> ... We Scorpios don't believe in astrology.
... We Capricorns are too pragmatic to bother with astrology.
--- FMail 0.98
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