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...the account of a trick by a person ignorant of the method used in its production will involve a misdescription of its fundamental conditions...so marked that no clue is afforded the student for the actual explanation. Richard Hodgson, Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 9, 360, 1894.
In one of the first experimental studies of eyewitness testimony, Hodgson & Davey (1887) held fake seances for unsuspecting sitters, and requested each sitter to write a description of the seance after it had ended. Hodgson & Davey noted that sitters omitted many important events, and recalled others in an incorrect order. In a partial replication of this work, Besterman (1932) had sitters attend a fake seance and then answer questions relating to various phenomena that had occurred. Besterman reports that sitters had a tendency to underestimate the number of persons present in the seance room, to fail to report major disturbances that took place (e.g. the movement of the experimenter from the seance room), to fail to recall the conditions under which given phenomena took place, and to experience the illusory movements of objects. More recently, Jones & Russell (1980) asked both believers in the paranormal (referred to as 'Sheep') and disbelievers (referred to as 'Goats'--these are terms commonly used within parapsychology, and will be adopted for the remainder of this paper) to observe a staged demonstration of extra-sensory perception (ESP). In one condition the demonstration was successful (i.e. ESP appeared to occur) whilst in the other it was not. Subjects were then asked to recall the demonstration. Sheep who saw the unsuccessful demonstration distorted their memories of it and often stated that ESP had occurred. Goats correctly recalled the demonstration, even if it appeared to support the existence of ESP.
This work has important theoretical and pragmatic implications. Theoretically, these studies are of interest to psychologists concerned with eyewitness testimony, especially those researching human deception (e.g. Lambert, 1987; Whaley, 1985; Wiseman & Morris, 1992). On a more pragmatic level, this work is of interest to individuals who are required to accurately observe, and recall, potential acts of deception. For example, parapsychologists investigating individuals claiming strong psychic ability have discovered that many of these claimants are fraudulent (see Hansen, 1990; Kurtz, 1985). In addition, both police...