Research source

VI. Other forms of involuntary indications; "involuntary whispering;" the subconscious 334

Date of account: Published 1900
Source: Fact and Fable in Psychology
Reference: Fact and Fable in Psychology · selected passage 52
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

The simplest type of a deception occurs when an inference or an interpretation of this type, owing to an unusual disposition of external circumstances, leads to a conclusion which other and presumably superior testimony shows to be false

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

The simplest type of a deception occurs when an inference or an interpretation of this type, owing to an _unusual disposition of external circumstances_, leads to a conclusion which other and presumably superior testimony shows to be false. Thus, in the observation which Aristotle knew and described, that a pea or other round object held between two fingers crossed one over the other seems double, it is the unusual position of the fingers that induces the illusion. Under ordinary circumstances a sensation of contact on the left side of one finger and on the right side of the finger next to it (to the right) could only be produced by the simultaneous application of two bodies. We unconsciously and naturally make the same inference when the fingers are crossed, and thus fall into error--an error, it is important to observe, which we do not _outgrow_ but _antagonize_ by more convincing evidence.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This source supplies historical scientific, skeptical or conventional context. Its terminology and conclusions may not reflect current scholarship.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

Lattice uses this as an alternative-explanation source, not as an automatic dismissal of testimony. Claims still need to be compared with the actual evidence and current knowledge.

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