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 156
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
of a number,--say from one to ten, or from one to one hundred,--and the other records any number which at the same moment suggests itself to him, it may result that the proportion of correct or partially correct guesses exceeds that which chance would produce; and arguments for telepathy have been based on such results
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 onlyof a number,--say from one to ten, or from one to one hundred,--and the other records any number which at the same moment suggests itself to him, it may result that the proportion of correct or partially correct guesses exceeds that which chance would produce; and arguments for telepathy have been based on such results. In the series of experiments in question these "involuntary whisperings" were not severely suppressed,--much as in the automatograph tests one might determine to let the glass move if it would. It must be understood that there was no true whispering nor any movement of the speaking mechanism which a bystander could detect; and yet it seems likely that the one participant was influenced in his guessing by the vague but yet real, subconscious, embryonic articulation of the other. The proof of this lies mainly in the analysis of the successes and errors; for the confusions are strikingly between numerals of somewhat similar sound,--as between fourteen and forty, or sixty and thirty, or six and seven.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis source supplies historical scientific, skeptical or conventional context. Its terminology and conclusions may not reflect current scholarship.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice 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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