Self-study
Two hundred randomly selected subjects were asked, "Have you ever awakened, seemingly paralyzed, with a sense of a strange presence in the room?" Forty percent answered yes. █ ████████ ████████ ███████ █████ ██ ███ █████████ ████████ ██ ███ ████ █████ ████ █████ ██████ ██ ████ ██████████ ████ ██████ ██ █████████ ██████████ ████ ██ ███████ ██ ███ ███████ █████ ████████ ████
Summary
Group 1: 40% of people said they’d awakened seemingly paralyzed and with a sense of a strange presence.
Group 2: 14% of people said they’d awakened seemingly paralyzed.
Strongly Supported Conclusions
These numbers don’t add up. If 40% of people have woken up seemingly paralyzed and with a sense of a strange presence, then at least 40% of people have woken up seemingly paralyzed one way or another. So how can the numbers in group 2 be so low?
The only apparent difference between these two randomly selected groups is the question each group was asked. When subjects were asked about a more specific experience, they were more likely to answer that they had experienced that thing than when subjects were asked about a more general experience. So it appears that people can be more likely to agree that something has happened to them when they’re asked in greater detail.
17.
Which one of the following ██████████ ██ ████ █████████ ██ ███ ███████████ ██████
a
Experiencing a sense ██ █ ███████ ████████ ██ █ ████ ██ ████ ███ ██████ ████████ ██ ████ ██ ██████ ████ ███ ██████████
Correlation-to-causation flaw. Merely knowing that some people in the first group experienced both feelings of paralysis and feelings of a strange presence can’t tell us whether one feeling causes the other.
b
The number of ████████ ███ ███ ████████ ████ █ █████ ██ █ ███████ ████████ ██ ███ ████ ███ ███████ ██ ███ █████ █████ ████ ██ ███ ███████ ██████
Unsupported comparison. We don’t know how many subjects in either group had awakened simply with a sense of a strange presence. The first group was asked a narrower question: was there a strange presence and did you feel paralyzed? And the second group wasn’t asked about a strange presence at all.
c
If the reports ██ ███ █████ █████ ██ ████████ ████ █████████ █████████████ ██ ███████ ██ ████ ███ █████ ████████ ████ █ █████ ██ █ ███████ ████████ ██ ███ █████
This assumes that 40% of group 1 did feel a strange presence. But we don’t know if that’s true. We only know that 40% of them felt the combination of a strange presence and paralysis. It’s possible that others in the group felt just a strange presence, with no paralysis. Since we don’t know the total percentage that felt a strange presence (with or without paralysis), we can’t infer how many didn’t feel a strange presence.
d
At least some ██ ███ ████████ ████████ ████████ ██ ███ █████ ████ ████████████ ████████
The second group was made up of different subjects from the first, so there was no apparent way for any subjects to give “inconsistent reports” by shifting their responses.
e
The tendency of ████████ ██ ██████ █ ████████████ ██ ██ █████ ███ █████████ ██ █████████ ██ ██████████ █████████████ ████ ███████████ ███ ██████
More people responded “yes” when asked to recall an event (awakening seemingly paralyzed) with an accompanying circumstance (the sense of a strange presence in the room) than when they were simply asked to recall only the event.