Logic and Lizards

Originally published for Paranormal Enlightenment Magazine: http://paranormalenlightenment.com/logic-lizards/

My late father was a man who had many interests.  For example, he built model trains and was an avid gardener.  It was common for him to call me out to the garage to show me a new model building he painted or out to the yard to show me a prized rose blooming.  Once in a while though, my dad would take advantage of my gullibility.  On one such occasion during a visit a few years ago, he called from the garage, "Come out here, so I can show this." Since he'd been busy working on more models, I suspected nothing nefarious about the request and ventured into the garage, where, with a smirk, he pointed down at something near my feet: a skink.  For those who don't know, skinks are long, skinny lizards that look very similar to something I am phobic about - snakes.  I screamed and broke a couple laws of physics by promptly levitating four feet backwards.  Dad got the biggest kick out of it, enjoying a good belly laugh at my expense.  (The skink remained unharmed.)

I will get back to dad and lizards in a moment, but before I do, I want to discuss something important for us, as paranormal investigators, to be aware of:  apophenia, commonly called pattern seeking.  According to RationalWiki, apophenia is "the experience of seeing meaningful patterns or connections in random or meaningless data".  Other related terms include Carl Jung's "synchronicity", in which he asserted that coincidences containing symbolism actually had meaning.  I've talked about Michael Shermer's term "patternicity" before.  From his book The Believing Brain:  "Our brains are belief engines, evolved pattern-recognition machines that connect the dots and create meaning out of the patterns that we think we see in nature.  Sometimes A really is connected to B; sometimes it is not."

There are types of apophenia that paranormal investigators should be aware of when trying to find the cause behind claims.  Many are already familiar with pareidolia, also called matrixing, where a subject sees a meaningful shape, most often faces, in random patterns.  This also applies to sound, when ambient noise at certain frequencies and patterns can sound like speech.  Confirmation bias is when one tests their hypothesis in ways to only confirm it, not disprove it.  Hindsight bias is concluding that seemingly meaningful events have caused a current situation.  This is common in the paranormal community, where people take random events and connect them.  For example, weird noises in the house, disturbing dreams, and sensation of cold spots if taken individually, will each likely have mundane and unrelated explanations, but putting them together makes a recipe for a classic "haunting".   Of course, priming increases the likelihood of seeing a certain pattern that isn't really there.  For example, if we are told that a picture has what looks like a little girl, we are more likely to see a little girl in a pixilated blob.  When we are told what a supposed EVP says, we are more likely to hear those words, even if what was recorded wasn't a voice or words at all.

During a recent visit home, I pruned the rose bushes for my mom.   Naturally, as I was doing so, I thought of my dad, who taught me where to make cuts on the plants as well as the history of some of the roses.  Like one that came from a cutting from my grandmother's yard, which grew from a cutting from my great-grandmother's yard.  Afterward, I took the cuttings to the proper garbage bin and when I lifted the lid, sitting on top of the yard waste and staring at me with malice, was a spotted lizard. Not proud to report that I developed a spontaneous case of Tourette's Syndrome and slammed the lid shut.  I couldn't help but think how my dad would have gotten a good laugh out of this.  (Later, with my mom by my side for protection, I propped the lid open so the lizard could safely get out.)

The next day, I went to visit my dad's grave.  Because it is in an old picturesque rural cemetery, I brought my camera with me.  As I wandered around some of the older graves, I soon sensed I was being followed.  I heard a rustling of leaves on the ground behind me as as I walked and turned around but saw nobody.  Feeling a little creeped out, I continued taking photos, and as I stooped to get a shot of a wooden marker, my stalker made itself known:  a little brown lizard.  I waved my arms at it to try to persuade it to go elsewhere, and, thankfully, it did.  But soon after, another rustling of dried leaves from the opposite direction revealed another brown lizard, running straight for me.  It hopped up on a the concrete boarder of a plot right by me and started doing little push ups, which I took as a direct threat to my well-being.  I decided me and my camera were going elsewhere.  And again, I thought of Dad, watching this scene and chuckling at my irrational fear of the tiny reptiles.

Was my connecting the lizards to my dad merely a product of apophenia?  As a skeptic, I have to admit it is most likely.  But might it be possible that Dad was somehow around, laughing with me?  As a grieving daughter, I want to think so.  A psychologist once explained to me that it doesn't matter whether such experiences are actual contact with deceased loved ones.  What matters is how they keep their memories alive, and eases the pain of our loss somewhat.

I continue to encourage paranormal investigators to remain objective and use critical thinking when investigating claims.  But my experiences also prompt me to remind researchers to understand how and why grieving clients may be processing and interpreting information.  Several years ago, I was part of a writing seminar in which we all critiqued each other's pieces.  A woman wrote a ghost story, where after the funeral of the main character's father, a balloon floated from room to room until it rested by a photo of the deceased man, proving he was there with them.  I had to open my big mouth to provide a rational explanation like air currents and the stack affect in homes, and said it would take a lot more in the story to convince me there was a ghostly visit.  The woman broke down in tears, and later someone explained to me that although she had written it in the third person, the story was about her own experience.  I felt awful, but it was a painful lesson for me to be much more sensitive to others' grief when listening to their paranormal claims.  Maybe that's why those lizards were giving me the stink-eye.

Sources:
RationalWiki: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Apophenia


Michael Shermer, The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies - How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths
New York: Times Books 2011, 59

Believing Is Seeing

It is said that seeing is believing. But, beliefs are NOT facts.  When someone says, "I know what I saw", it is inaccurate.  They know what they believe they saw.  Only a portion of the visual process involves the eye, the rest is perceived in the brain in a series of complex processes.  Furthermore, our expectations influence that perception.  

Studies suggest that even language and cultural expectations influence how we see our world.  Various cultures have different words and categories for colors, and actually see them differently from others.   Various experiments with the Himba tribe have supported this.  English, like many of the world's major languages, has 11 basic colors terms.  Himba has five, each covering a wider range of colors.  For example, "zoozu" is a term used for various dark colors that we would call darker blues, greens, browns, purples, reds or black. One experiment involved showing Himba subjects a color wheel of green tiles and having them pick out the one slightly different shade of green. While generally, Westerners had more difficulty selecting it, Himba subjects identified it right away.  Interestingly though, a new color wheel was presented with all green but one blue tile that was obvious to Westerners.  However, the Himba had difficulty identifying it.  (This experiment with the Himba tribe is included in the following video: )

http://www.boreme.com/posting.php?id=30670#.UtbEk-DFW_U   

Recently, we saw how people's perception of color varied when a picture of a dress went viral.  Some saw it as white and gold, while others saw it as blue and black.  Scientists who study color explained the discrepancy was due to how our eyes evolved to see in daylight and how our brains tried to match it to the daylight color gradient, filling in the details for us.  (Personally, I saw it as blue and gold.)

When we believe in ghosts and told a place is haunted, and then further primed with stories of specific apparitions, shadow people, or strange lights, the likelihood increases that we will misperceive what we see to fit our expectations.  Many ghost hunters still "investigate" in the dark.  While it makes for entertaining TV, it also creates so many issues hindering valid research. As I've mentioned in other posts, our eyes are not well adapted to see in the dark.  When our brains try to make sense of what our eyes see poorly in a dark environment, it "fills in" details that aren't really there.  But even in bright conditions, a person's beliefs and expectations will influence what they think they see.  Priming also explains how different people may "see" the same thing at a location.  

In another post, I mentioned watching a TV program which showed an interesting experiment at Loch Ness.  On one side of the shore, people were asked to witness the researchers launch a log into the lake.  They asked the witness to draw it.  Not surprising, they drew a straight log.  But then, the researchers asked people on the other side of the lake, who were not privy to the log launch, to draw what they saw.  Interestingly, the straight log now grew a neck and head, similar to what the Loch Ness monster reportedly looks like.  Were these people lying or dimwitted?  No, they saw a shape in the water across the lake, a group of people watching said shape, and then their expectations about the notorious location filled in the rest.

Priming also enhances pareidolia, or matrixing, in photos and videos.  How many times have we seen paranormal pictures of blobs with a caption of "little girl" or "demonic face" and then a whole lot of viewers post "I see it too!"  But in reality, there is nothing there.  We are hard wired to see faces in random patterns.   It is an evolutionary tool that helped our species survive.  To use Michael Shermer's (The Believing Brain) example, when our ancestors were strolling along a savannah and saw what looked like face within the tall grass, they immediately had to decide whether it meant danger or not.  To proceed without knowing whether it was a random pattern made by the grass or a predator, would be detrimental to survival.  Through experience, our brain evolved to err on side of caution.  

Pareidolia can make you see faces in this picture.  But one face is really there, and wants to meet you for lunch.
Source:  ArtWolfe/Caters News

In her book, Eyewitness Testimony, Elizabeth Loftus explains how our brains do not record an event like video tape.  The process is quite complex.  There are three stages of how we form memories of an event.  The first is how we perceive an event.  As discussed above, we see there are various factors which influence how we can misperceive what we see.  The next stage is retention.  During this stage, discussing, or overhearing someone else's account of the same event can unintentionally manufacture new details and dramatically change the witness's memory.  Finally, there is the retrieval stage where some time after the event, the witness is asked to recall specific details.  Obviously, if there are flaws in the first two stages, the retrieval stage will be inaccurate.  And even if the event was perceived accurately, details can be forgotten, leading to failure of retrieval.  Furthermore, the conditions at the time of retrieval influence the accuracy.  Some factors include what type of questions are asked, how the questions are worded and who is asking them.  While Loftus's book focuses on the reliability of memory in criminal cases, it can be applied to other situations, including paranormal claims.  Like witnesses of crimes, many witnesses of seemingly paranormal experiences report it caught them unexpectedly, feeling fear, and "it happened so fast", all which can increase the likelihood of misperception.

All this does not mean paranormal researchers should dismiss eyewitness accounts out of hand.  As scientific paranormal investigator Ben Radford explained in his book, Scientific Paranormal Investigation, it IS a valid starting point for an investigation.  However, if a researcher is there to conduct a productive investigation, it is important for them not to take the account at face value, because as discussed above, there are many factors complicating how people perceive and interpret experiences. Many times clients call in paranormal investigators to validate their experiences.  I've seen paranormal team websites boast things like "We believe you" or "You're not crazy, we'll help" and similar slogans.  While I agree that it is helpful to reassure a sincere client that they experienced something and aren't necessarily going bonkers, it is NOT helpful to encourage them that it was paranormal, without providing scientific, valid evidence.  When we label ourselves investigators or researchers, we should strive to understand how the human mind processes the natural world before we offer presumptions about the supernatural one.

Sources:

Denise Grady, Discovery Magazine, "The Vision Thing: Mainly in the Brain"
 June 01, 1993

http://discovermagazine.com/1993/jun/thevisionthingma227#.UsWhWeDFW_U

Rachel Adelson, American Psychological Association, 
"Hues and views: A cross-cultural study reveals how language shapes color perception."
February 2005, Vol 36, No. 2  Print version: page 26
http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb05/hues.aspx

Adam Rodgers, Wired, "The Science of Why No One Agrees on the Color of This Dress"
February 26, 2015
http://www.wired.com/2015/02/science-one-agrees-color-dress/

Elizabeth Luftus, Eyewitness Testimony
Cambridge; Harvard University Press, 1996

Benjamin Radford, Scientific Paranormal Investigation
Corrales NM ; Rhombus Publishing Company 2010 

Michael Shermer,  The Believing Brain 
New York:  Times Books  Henry Holt and Company, LLC,  2011

The Evocative EVP

By now, many of us in the paranormal field have been exposed to natural explanations of orbs caught in photos and videos.   Some of us have even repeated various experiments to replicate all kinds of orbs in order to validate these explanations.   So naturally, informed investigators set out to educate others to dispel the unsubstantiated claim that orbs are evidence of the paranormal.    This is a good thing.

However, while more investigators are being hyper vigilant over orbs and other photo/video artifacts, other common forms of "evidence" are not receiving the same level of scrutiny.  Perhaps this due to the level of subjectivity.   It is relatively easy to recreate orb photos and therefore offer objective data for people to study.   But other "evidence" is much more subjective, and harder to convince blind believers otherwise.  An example, and my focus here today, is EVP.

EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon) is often touted by paranormal groups to be evidence of the afterlife.   While that may be, the problem is that like photo and video, the potential for misidentification due to poor protocols, poor controls, poor equipment, misuse of equipment as well as pareidolia, is quite high - perhaps even higher.

It is disappointing to see investigators who passionately criticize orb photos become overly defensive over their own evidence, including EVPs.    They preach to others how to properly use cameras, but then they fail to take a good look at their own audio equipment and recording procedures.

Part of the problem is people don't want to learn about anything that might challenge the validity of their beloved EVP collection.  Not long ago, I had a conversation with an investigator who was a cast member of popular paranormal TV show for a while.  We discussed EVPs and how he claimed to capture more using cheaper recorders.  He even anticipated my arguments against cheaper recorders because he'd heard them before.  Yet, he stuck fast to his belief, despite substantiated facts to the contrary.  While he's a nice guy, what he is doing does not fall under my definition of investigating or research.  It is simple wish fulfillment.

There are two primary flaws using cheaper digital recorders to capture "authentic" EVPs.  First, they do not provide sufficient shielding from radio frequencies.  I've talked with professional audio engineers and radio techs who confirmed that recorders can and do pick up radio frequencies.  I also recently read about an interesting experiment conducted by Modern Age Paranormal which supports their hypothesis that EVPs are ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) radio waves.  The second issue is that cheaper digital recorders compress and distort what you record, resulting in missing data.  Therefore, upon playback, you do not get a complete or true representation of the sound.    Keeping this in mind, here's a visual example to consider:

On the left is the infamous "Face On Mars" taken in the Cydonia Region on Mars in 1976 by Voyager.  On the right is an image from 2001 of the same formation, at a much higher resolution.   As we can see, with lower resolution, crucial information is missing, causing a misinterpretation of the what the formation actually looks like.  Add a little matrixing to the the mix and you get this guy:

Even if one can rule out the issues I've mentioned, there is the problem of how the brain misinterprets sounds.  There have been reliable scientific studies showing that people hear things that are not there.   One study, discussed in Mary Roach's book Spook,  illustrates this and is relevant to EVP review.   Subjects were asked to transcribed a poorly recorded lecture.  Many were able to hear words and even complete phrases.  However, in reality, the recording was nothing but white noise.  As I've discussed before, ambient sounds can easily be misinterpreted as voice, especially when they are within certain frequencies and rhythms causing the brain to automatically switch to speech mode.  Personally, I've participated in many audio reviews where people swore they heard a meaningful response when all I heard was something akin to "Glarmpht".  So even if something sounds like a voice or a phrase, it doesn't mean that it is.  And even if it is, you still have are left with the task of proving that it belongs to a ghost.

Then there is another controversial possibility:  psi activity.  Some parapsychologists hypothesize that living, breathing humans can somehow imprint our thoughts on electronics via psychic means.  Before some readers roll their eyes and dismiss this outright, if you think about it, it's just as plausible (if not more so) than the idea that we are recording ghosts.  There are even more assumptions to consider with the latter:  if ghosts even exist,  if ghosts can hear us, if ghosts can understand us, if ghosts are willing to communicate, and if ghosts' "voices" can be recorded.  

Since the burden is on us to provide extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims, ALL evidence must be met with the same high level of scrutiny, even when it is harder to explain than orbs.  Going back to my title, "The Evocative EVP", evocation is defined as the act of calling or summoning a spirit, demon, god or other supernatural agent.   In a way, some investigators are indeed summoning false spirits by misidentifying EVP.

Links:
http://www.modernageparanormal.com/kb/the_science_of_evps.asp
http://www.jimsdestinations.com/pgststrt.htm

Learning on a Bell Curve

This is a picture of a reflection in a bell.  It was taken in a Firefighter's hall on a photography expedition.   When the photographer (left) later reviewed the photo, he was surprised to see what appears to be a figure sitting next to him.   There was only one other person in the building at the time, and she (who bears no resemblance to the figure) was nowhere near the photographer when this picture was taken.  What do you see?  I saw a guy wearing sunglasses, sitting next to the right of the photographer.   I admit, this gave me a good case of the heebies.

I know the photographer, and he is one of the few people in world who I will believe when he says, "There wasn't anybody next to me."

Why?  Because the photographer is Jonathan Wood, founder of River Cities Paranormal Society and co-owner of the MyPara Paranormal Social Network.  He actively practices and promotes logic-based investigating.   I know he will search for every possible rational explanation for any anomaly in a picture.

This photo was no different.  Jonathan shared the photo with other serious paranormal investigators and asked for their opinions.  But before long, he debunked it himself.  The "figure" is actually his thumb and the "sunglasses" is part of the camera.    Textbook pareidolia.  Case closed.

But it is an excellent example of a couple points I have made before.  First, it demonstrates the importance of not declaring something as "evidence" of the paranormal just because initially, it may appear to have no explanation.  It also shows that by using common sense, technical experience, and asking for informed opinions, an anomaly that might be mistaken as a paranormal can be soundly explained.

The second point it supports is that just because an explanation isn't readily available, it does not necessarily mean a person is lying about the circumstances of a picture.   If Jonathan didn't debunk it, and stuck to his claim there was no one else around him at the time, I know of some people in the field who would likely accuse him of either faking this, being untruthful, or being oblivious to his surroundings.  He would be criticized for not presenting control shots or comparison shots, even though this was not taken on an investigation.

Would it have been cool if he had really captured a ghost?  Sure.  But it's also interesting to see how easily we can be fooled if we don't take the time and effort to look for the truth.