A study by Bruner and Postman in 1949 published as "On the perception of incongruity: a paradigm" was interesting. Bruner and Postman asked experimental subjects to identify on short an controlled exposure a series of playing cards. Many of the cards where normal, but some where made anomalous,e.g., a red six of spades and a black four of hearts. Each experimental run constituted by the display of a single card to a single subject in a series of gradually increased exposures. After each exposure the subject was asked what he had seen, and the run was terminated by two successive correct identifications.
Even on the shortest exposures many subjects identified most of the cards, and after a small increase all the subjects identified them all. For the normal cards these identification where usually correct, but the anomalous cards were almost always identified, without apparent hesitation or puzzlement, as normal. The black four of hearts might, for example, be identified as the four of either spades or hearts. Without any awareness of trouble, it was immediately fitted to one of the conceptual categories prepared by prior experience. One would not even like to say that the subjects had seen something different from what they identified. With a further increase of exposure to the anomalous cards, subjects did begin to hesitate and to display awareness of anomaly. Exposed, for example, to the red six of spades, some would say: That's the size of spades, but there is something wrong with it - the black has a red border. Further increase of exposure resulted in still more hesitation and confusion until finally, and sometimes quite suddenly, most subjects would produce the correct identification without hesitation. Moreover, after doing this with two or three of the anomalous cards, they would have Little further difficulty with the others. A few subjects, however where never able to make the requisite adjustment of their categories. Even at forty times the average exposure required to recognize normal cards for what they where, more then 10 percent of the anomalous cards where not correctly identified. And the subjects who then failed often experienced acute personal distress. One of them exclaimed: "i cant make the suit out, whatever it is. It didn't even look like a card that time. I don't know what color it is now or whether its a spade or a heart. I'm not even sure what a spade looks like. My God!" Others expressed being acutely uncomfortable when shown the incongruous cards with experiences bordering on real pain.
Now here is analogous tie in. Many who grow up in the truth see only the metaphorical cards that fit their conceptual categories for much of their early life. Some isolate themselves sufficiently their entire life to avoid any "incongruous cards" all-together. But often in today's system the inundation of information that is anomalous or incongruous when placed against the truth its inevitable that exposure will happen. This may come in the form of exposure to information in seemingly innocuous ways such as higher education or more insidious ways as debased entertainment or literature formed with the soul intent to plug incongruous ideas, or ones that tear down individual spirituality. For most this information will be passed over when exposure is brief, and for a good number when when exposure is lengthened they will intuitively made adjustments to the perception of such anomaly's and make fitting categorizations of these observations so as to protect their faith. For some though this exposure to incongruous information, information that does not fit the conceptual categories they had formed in the truth, is debilitating. Like the test subject that exclaimed, "I'm not even sure what a spade looks like." many in a spiritual way have been so addled by the flood of incongruous non-spiritual information that they too have lost there ability to identify even seemingly basic truths; they have lost touch with the elementary spiritual principals. Also like the test subjects in the study they have experienced a real form of pain and acute discomfort and have then lashed out not only at their core beliefs but often those that where incongruous leaving them further lost and often spiritually and emotionally exhausted.
Just thought that was a interesting study, and incite-full when we encounter those that seem like they have lost bearings spiritually.
(Much of the study details quoted above where pulled word for word from Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.")
No comments:
Post a Comment