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The Psi Q Test

Jeff Corey

New York Skeptic
Jeff Corey
Joined
Aug 2, 2001
Messages
13,714
New semester, new psych classes - experimental and critical thinking. I give the Psi Q Test in the first class to stimulate discussion and break wooish gonads. T/F format.
1. Most people use less than 20 percent of their brain.
2. Our eyes respond to the primary colors red, blue and green.
3. Peptic ulcers are caused by stress and anxiety.
4. Subliminal messages can make us buy certain products.
5. Jet lag is worse if you fly from LA to NY than from NY to LA.
6. Hypnosis is valuable in getting witnesses to remember details of a crime.
7. Schizophrenics have a split personality.
8. The full moon causes people to behave abnormally.
9. You should never change a T/F or multple choice answer on a test.
10. Common goldfish cannot remember anything for more than an hour.
11. Our unconscious mind stores everything we've ever experienced.
12. It is not good to study too much for a test.
13. Hypnotized people can remember events from their first year of life.
14. Certain people have been proven to be able to read minds.
15. If you toss a fair coin 99 times, get all heads, the next is probably tails.
16. Human have more than five different senses.

If you have any more, add them please. Also, please suggest any changes that might eliminate any quibbling.
 
Jeff Corey said:
2. Our eyes respond to the primary colors red, blue and green.
4. Subliminal messages can make us buy certain products.
5. Jet lag is worse if you fly from LA to NY than from NY to LA.
9. You should never change a T/F or multple choice answer on a test.
12. It is not good to study too much for a test.
Click to expand...

These five seem arguable to me.

2. I'm not sure what you mean by our eyes "respond" to certain colors. Our eyes can recognize them just as they can all sorts of colors. It seems vague.

4. Subliminal messages can "make" you buy products or can influence you to buy products? And does "subliminal" mean hidden words flashed quickly or psychological forces that you do not realize you are being influenced by? I can't tell what you're getting at?

5. "Worse" jet lag seems very subjective. You're going to get a student telling you a story about this time she took a trip and her friend drank on the plane, etc. Maybe you should just change it to "generally worse."

9. Never change an answer? Never ever? What if somebody bumped your elbow and you checked the wrong box? What if you misnumbered the questions and put F for 10 when you thought it was question 9? "Generally never" might help.

12. The words "not good" and "too much" are very subjective. Sometimes, doing worse on a test by over-studying might be "good" because you learn a valuable life lesson, etc.

Hope this helps and isn't too nitpicky.
 
(I am assuming that the correct answer is false for all of them)

Jeff Corey said:
2. Our eyes respond to the primary colors red, blue and green.
Click to expand...
This one is nitpicking. We have three color sensors and these are good labels for them.

Jeff Corey said:
7. Schizophrenics have a split personality.
Click to expand...
I don't think this will generate much discussion. How do you argue with the DSM?

Jeff Corey said:
16. Human have more than five different senses.
Click to expand...
Since you are nitpicking, what would you call balance and proprioception?

The others sound fine, good luck with the experiment.

ETA: My favorite: in a lottery, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 is less likely to come up than 15, 18, 20, 23, 44.
 
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Unnamed said:
(I am assuming that the correct answer is false for all of them)


This one is nitpicking. We have three color sensors and these are good labels for them.

I don't think this will generate much discussion. How do you argue with the DSM?

Since you are nitpicking, what would you call balance and proprioception?

The others sound fine, good luck with the experiment.

ETA: My favorite: in a lottery, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 is less likely to come up than 15, 18, 20, 23, 44.
Click to expand...

The answer is not F for all of them. For example, the ten or so different senses.
Just out of curiosity, which are T?
 
Certain people have been proven to be able to foretell the future.

Certain people have been proven to be able to communicate with the dead.

Certain people have been proven to be able to see auras.
 
I'd also kind of quibble with #4, because I've seen evidence that manipulative images can be found within advertising, at a level the average person doesn't often detect. In that sense, I think subliminal advertising exists, but I don't know for certain if or how much it actually affects us. So the statement begs the question, in that it assumes subliminal advertising exists, and the answer has to be based on that assumption without first establishing it.

...did I say that right?
 
Loss Leader said:
12. The words "not good" and "too much" are very subjective. Sometimes, doing worse on a test by over-studying might be "good" because you learn a valuable life lesson, etc.
Click to expand...
To add to this, by definition it's suboptimal (so "not good") to study "too much" for a test, because if there where no negative consequences of studying that amount, then it would not be "too much".
 
Unnamed said:
ETA: My favorite: in a lottery, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 is less likely to come up than 15, 18, 20, 23, 44.
Click to expand...
In the UKs national lottery the single most popular combination of number sold on tickets is 1 2 3 4 5 6. If that sequence ever came up, there would be a lot of very disappointed winners who thought they where being clever.
 
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Water rotates a certain direction while it goes down a hole. The direction depends solely or mainly on whether you are in the northern or southern hemisphere.

The above statement is false, yet I have not met many people who think it is false.


If you want heaps of such things go to the Mythbusters site. On the TV program they busted the following myth, often seen in movies.

If you fire a bullet through the skin of a commercial aircraft while it is in flight then the bullet will make a huge hole which you could get sucked out.

[derail] Why is it on TV but in movies? [/derail]
 
Thanks for the suggestions. Any more questions specifically dealing with psychology and human behavior would be helpful.
Also, if anyone has a link to questionnaires about belief in the paranormal or other weird things, I could use it for a critical thinking project. Claus' questions are a start.
 
Jeff,

Jeff Corey said:
The answer is not F for all of them. For example, the ten or so different senses.
Just out of curiosity, which are T?
Click to expand...
I'd answer T for 16, "I don't know" for 5 and 12, and F for the rest. Maybe I would change a few after looking them up, but I don't think the people in your experiment would have that chance.

Out of curiosity, can you say which are T, or how many are T?
 
2, 5 and 16 are true. Now that I think about it, I should reword some of the items so that there is an equal number of T and F answers to reduce response bias.
 
Jeff Corey said:
Thanks for the suggestions. Any more questions specifically dealing with psychology and human behavior would be helpful.Also, if anyone has a link to questionnaires about belief in the paranormal or other weird things, I could use it for a critical thinking project. Claus' questions are a start.
Click to expand...

www.uwstout.edu/lib/thesis/2002/2002lewisc.pdf

Scroll down to page 175 or so for the actual survey instrument (Appendix B).
 
(did you really attract CFLarsen and SteveGrenard? wow...)

Jeff Corey said:
2, 5 and 16 are true. Now that I think about it, I should reword some of the items so that there is an equal number of T and F answers to reduce response bias.
Click to expand...
That would be nice. I thought you were going for a punchline such as "if you marked true for any of the questions, you are wrong!".

I know I argued that (2) is true, but one can say that we also respond to monochromatic light in dark conditions.
 
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