Clever Hans Part 4

Above all things it was necessary that the questioner, during these tests, should stand perfectly erect. If he stooped ever so slightly, the test was unsuccessful. If he carefully refrained from any movement whatsoever, and looking straight before him asked the horse, "Which direction is right?" or "Which way is upward?", Hans would execute all sorts of head movements without rhyme or reason. It was evident that he noted that a head movement of some kind was expected of him, but did not know the particular one that was wanted. But if the questioner now raised his head, Hans would begin to nod and would continue doing so until the questioner lowered his head. This reaction was interpreted as signifying "yes". Mr. von Osten had always asked Hans before each of the more difficult tests whether he had comprehended the meaning of the problem, and was rea.s.sured only upon seeing the horse's affirmative response. But contrary to Mr. von Osten's expectation, Hans also responded in this manner after a pair of ear-caps had been drawn over his ears. In the case of the tests described at the beginning of the chapter, in which the method was that of "procedure without knowledge", Mr. von Osten had always insisted that we await Hans's nod of comprehension before proceeding. We complied; Hans nodded and--regularly disgraced himself!

When the questioner raised his head somewhat higher than normal, Hans would throw his own upward, which was supposed to signify "upward". A lowering of the head on the part of the questioner was followed by a lowering on the part of Hans, which was his form of response for "down".

For some time I was in a quandary as to the difference between the questioner's signal for this latter response and the one which was the signal for the horse to begin tapping, although I had often given both kinds unwittingly. Further experiments showed that Hans responded with a nod of the head whenever the questioner, while bending forward, chanced to stand in front of, or to the side of the horse's head, but that he would begin to tap in response to the same signal, as soon as the experimenter stood farther back. The difference in the two signals, therefore, was very slight, and I repeatedly noted that instead of tapping, as he had been requested, Hans would respond to the Count zu Castell's and Mr. Schillings' questions by a nod of the head.

If, while standing in the customary position to the right of and facing the horse, the questioner would turn his head a little to the right--a movement which, when seen from the horse's position, would appear to be to the left,--Hans would turn his head to his left. But if on the other hand the questioner would turn slightly to the left,--i. e. seen from the horse's position, to the right,--then Hans would turn his head to his right. And finally, whenever the questioner turned his head first to the right, then to the left, Hans would respond by turning first to his left, then to his right. This, according to Mr. von Osten, signified "zero" or "no". Since this movement could not be executed by the experimenter while in a stooping position, it can now readily be seen why it was that Hans, instead of shaking his head, always began to tap whenever a placard with "O" upon it, was shown to him in the course of the experiments in which the method was procedure without knowledge on the part of the questioner. The latter expected the horse to tap, and therefore bent forward. Like all of the horse's other forms of response, this, too, was always unsuccessful whenever the questioner stepped behind the animal. Although Hans had always responded to Mr. von Osten and Mr. Schillings, and at first also to me, by means of the stereotyped movement of the head to the right and then to the left to signify "zero"

or "no", I later succeeded in controlling my signals so as to get the inverted order in the horse's response. In the case of Mr. Schillings and of Mr. von Osten all of the movements just described were very minute, and long after the movements, which were effective stimuli for releasing the process of tapping, were recognized, it was still exceedingly difficult to discover them in these two gentlemen. The signal for "zero" and "no" was relatively the most p.r.o.nounced of the group in the case of Mr. von Osten, while with Mr. Schillings it was the least p.r.o.nounced, in comparison with his very strong "jerk". Yet in both cases Hans responded with absolute certainty.

It is now readily conceivable how it was possible to make the horse respond to all sorts of foolish questions, both by involuntary signs--i.

e., expressions following upon the bare imaging of the response expected,--as well as by means of controlled signs. One could thus obtain consecutively the answers "yes" and "no" to the same question. Or one might ask: "Hans, where is your head?", and Hans would bend to the earth. "And where are your legs?" He would look at the skies. Etc.

Let us examine for a moment the directives which the horse required for the various positions. If one called him, while he was running about the courtyard, he paid no attention whatever, but if one beckoned to him, he came immediately. A raising of the hand brought him to a standstill. If one now stepped forward or pointed one's hand in that direction, he would step forward, or _vice versa_, he would step backward. By means of minimal movements of the head, of the arm nearest the horse, or of the whole body, Hans could be induced to a.s.sume the position one desired, without touching him or speaking a word. I noticed this quite early in the course of the investigation. Once, when intending to ask the horse to step backward to the right, I inadvertently said "Step backward to the left!", whereupon he stepped backward to the right. In spite of my verbal error, I had involuntarily given him the proper directives.

Finally we may note that Mr. von Osten had occasionally asked the horse to jump or to rear. The command in this case was: "Jump", or the question was: "What do the horses do in the circus?". Since these tests were just as effective when the command was given silently, it was an indication that these, too, depended upon visual stimuli. What was necessary to cause the horse to step backward and then jump forward was to step backward oneself, or make a slight movement of the hand in that direction. If one wished to make him rear, it might be effected by throwing the arm or head slightly upward.

_III. Problems which Hans solved by approaching the objects to be designated._

The method pursued in these tests was the following: From five to eight pieces of colored cloth 1/2 1/4 meters in size were arranged in changing series upon the ground, the interval between them being equal to the width of one piece, or else they were hung upon a string a man's height above the ground. This method was also employed when placards of like size with written symbols were used. The horse stood ten paces away and opposite the middle of the series, while Mr. von Osten stood at his right. Hans was asked to go and point out the cloth of a certain color or the placard with a certain word upon it. If the cloth lay upon the ground, Hans picked it up with his mouth and carried it to the questioner. If the cloth, like the placards, hung from the cord, he approached, pointed it out with his nose and then backed up to his original position. Before approaching the objects, Hans was required to indicate, by tapping, the number of the place in the series (counting from left to right), which the cloth or placard occupied. Mr. von Osten never omitted this requirement. Then the command "Go!" was given, and Hans obeyed. (As a matter of fact, a slight directive movement of the head or hand was just as effective as the spoken command).

The following cases, chosen in a haphazard fashion, show that the horse's indication of the object's place in the series, by means of tapping, was by no means a guarantee that he would point it out correctly. Five placards hung from the cord. Mr. von Osten asked: "What is the position, counting from left to right, of the placard which has the word 'aber' inscribed upon it?". Hans answered: 3. (It was indeed the middle placard.) Then he was commanded: "Go!". Thereupon Hans went straight to the fourth placard. On another occasion Hans happened to drop a brown cloth upon a black one. His master asked him: "In which place are there two cloths?". Hans responded correctly, "In the second place". To the question "Which of the two is the black one?" he also answered rightly: "The lower one". Upon being asked to get it, he brought the white cloth.

The large number and the irregularities of the errors showed that there was no manner of intelligence involved in the pointing out process. Thus during the two months of our experimentation Hans was asked twenty-five times by Mr. von Osten to bring the green cloth. Only six times did he succeed in the first attempt, while in five instances he selected an orange-colored cloth, four times a blue, three times a white one.

The fact that the errors were equally distributed over the tests with the colored cloths and those with the placards is strong evidence that the horse's response involved no intellectual process, for if that were the case, then the responses in the tests with the placards would have been very much more difficult, for they would have involved the ability to read, whereas the tests with the colored cloths demanded only that a few names be remembered. Nevertheless, the horse was as unsuccessful in tests of one kind as he was in those of the other,--even when Mr. von Osten acted as questioner. (50% failures in 78 placard tests; 46% failures in 103 color tests.)

The fact that commands which were purposely enunciated poorly, or else not spoken at all, were executed with just as much accuracy as those given aloud, strengthened us in our supposition. On one occasion I placed a blank placard with the others. When I ordered him to approach _tabula rasa_, he invariably went to the right one. The following ill.u.s.trates how he fulfilled quite nonsensical commands. A series of blue and green cloths lay upon the ground. Being asked where the black, the orange, and the yellow cloths lay, Hans shook his head energetically, i. e. they were not there. And yet, upon being asked to bring them in the order named, he regularly brought one of the blue ones.

All this goes to show that Hans did not know the names of the colors (to say nothing of the symbols on the placards). It was plain that here also, as in all the other cases, he was controlled by signs made by the questioner, the nature of which I soon discovered. Standing erect, Mr.

von Osten always turned head and trunk in the direction of the cloth or placard desired. Hans, keeping his eye on his master, would proceed in that direction. Even after he had already started out, thanks to his large visual field one could control his direction by turning slightly more to the right or to the left. If, however, he had already arrived at the row of placards or cloths, this method ceased to be effective, for then he could no longer see the experimenter. It made no difference whether the cloths lay on the ground, or were suspended, like the placards.

The following fact justifies the conclusion that the bodily att.i.tude of the questioner was the effective signal. The more numerous the cloths, or the nearer they were placed together, the more difficult one would expect it to be for the horse to select the one indicated by the experimenter. Such was indeed the case, for the number of errors increased with the number of cloths presented.

But no matter how many cloths there might be, or how closely they might be placed, it was always possible to indicate either end of the row, for in that case one had merely to turn to the extreme left or the extreme right, and might even turn beyond the row. Hans seldom failed in these cases, whereas he made many errors when cloths or placards within the series were wanted.

To turn from the nature and number of Hans's errors, to their distribution,--observation proved the hypothesis that the nearer two cloths lay together, the greater was the chance of their being mistaken one for the other. If we designate as "error 1" all those cases in which Hans went to cloth II instead of to cloth I, cloth III instead of cloth II, to V instead of IV, etc., and as "error 2" when he mistook III for I, IV for II, in fine, whenever he went two places too far to the right or left, and as "error 3" whenever he went three places too far to either side of the cloth desired, we find the following grouping of errors:

With Mr. von Osten, a total of 63 errors: 73% "error 1"

21% "error 2"

4% "error 3"

1% "error 4"

1% "error 5"

With Mr. Pfungst, a total of 64 errors: 68% "error 1"

20% "error 2"

11% "error 3"

1% "error 4"

0% "error 5".

The most frequently recurring error, therefore, was the one in which the horse, instead of going to the cloth desired, approached the one immediately adjacent. On page 79 I said that Hans's errors were without system, but only in so far as it was impossible to explain them on a basis of the colors which seemingly were mistaken one for the other. A part of a series in which Mr. von Osten acted as questioner may serve as an ill.u.s.tration. The order given is that of the experimental series as it occurred. Five colored cloths were used.

Color of the cloth asked for: blue, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, green, green.

brought: orange, orange, green, green, yellow, green, blue, orange.

Place of cloth asked for: V II II II II II III III brought: IV IV III III I III V IV

The interpretation of this series which it would be hard to explain by a reference to the colors which were mistaken, is simply this: Cloths lying near together were regularly mistaken on the part of the horse.

Experimental control of the questioner's movements decided the question.

If the questioner at first indicated the proper direction and then turned about after the horse had already started forward, he was as a rule misled. When the questioner did not face the cloths at all, but turned away at right angles, or when he turned his back upon them, Hans was completely at sea. If, on the other hand, the cloths were arranged, not in a row, but in several heaps, so that one might turn to a particular heap, but could not indicate a particular cloth, then Hans would regularly go to the proper heap, but would always bring forth the wrong cloth. After much persuasion Mr. von Osten consented to make a series of these tests himself. Hans's failures were deplorable. He would take up first one cloth then another, turn again to the first, etc. We would mention, however, that this apparent searching was not done spontaneously, but in response to Mr. von Osten's calls, such as "See there!", "The blue!", etc. Every time Mr. von Osten called, Hans would drop the cloth he was holding in his mouth, or he would turn away from the one he was about to grasp, and would then try another one.

In addition to these visual signs, the horse received auditory signals in these tests, (as in all others in which he was required to bring objects). As soon as the questioner noticed that Hans was about to take up the wrong cloth, all that was necessary to make him correct his error was to give some sort of an exclamation, such as "Wrong!", "Look, you!", "Blue!", etc. Hans would pa.s.s on as long as the calling continued. If he was picking up, or about to pick up, a cloth when the exclamation was made, he would go on to the next; but if, at the time he was on his way to a certain cloth, he would change his direction in response to the call. If he stood before one of the pieces at the time, but had not lowered his head, he would pa.s.s on to the next. In all this he would adhere to a certain routine of procedure. If he was approaching a series from the right, then a call would cause him to turn to the left, if he was coming from the left, he would turn to the right. If he had approached the row of cloths near the center, he would turn, in response to the questioner's calls, to the left,--seldom, very seldom, to the right. Mr. von Osten did not seem to be able to control the responses of the horse, entirely. As a rule, but not always, one call sufficed to make Hans pa.s.s on to the next cloth. If too many calls were given, he would often go too far. Loud exclamations were superfluous.

These statements are not mere a.s.sertions, but are founded upon the records of the results. The tests in which calls were made show a larger percentage of correct responses than do those without calls. Of a total of 103 tests with colored cloths, which Mr. von Osten performed for us, only 37% brought forth successful responses on the part of the horse when visual signs were the only directives and when there were no directions by means of calls, whereas the total percentage of successful responses was 54%, if we add to the above those in which the vocal exclamations helped to bring about success. The corresponding percentages for the total of 78 tests with the placards were 23% and 50%. In a total of 110 color tests I myself obtained 31% correct responses under the first head, and 56% under the second head. In a total of 59 tests with placards I succeeded in getting 31% correct responses under the first head and 46% under the second head. We must note that without verbal admonition only one-third of the tests brought forth correct responses, whereas one-half succeeded when those in which calls were used, are added. Still, this is a relatively poor showing. In the most favorable series that Mr. von Osten ever obtained in our presence--and there was only one such--50% of the responses 'without admonition' were correct, and 90% when all the correct reactions, both with and without admonition, were taken into account.

Not all the places in the row required the same amount of a.s.sistance by means of calls. Those positions which needed the most help, were those which it was most difficult to indicate to the horse by the visual sign, i. e., the att.i.tude of the questioner's body. We noted above (page 81) that the cloths at either end of the row were less difficult to point out than those nearer the middle. If our hypothesis holds true, we would expect that the end cloths would involve fewer auditory signals in the process of pointing out, and those within the row a greater number of such signs. By way of ill.u.s.tration, I will cite one series of tests in which Mr. von Osten was questioner, chosen not because it is most conformable to my hypothesis but because it is the longest (48 consecutive tests with five cloths) which I have. In the upper row I am placing the successful responses without auditory signs, in the lower those involving both auditory and visual signs.

Place of the cloth : I II III IV V No. of sucessful } visual signs only : 5 2 1 2 4 responses. } visual and auditory signs : 5 5 8 5 5

We see that without verbal admonition the first and last places are most favorable for success, the second and fourth far less, and the middle least favorable. These differences disappear when admonitions are introduced, for all of the places then have the same number of correct responses with the exception of the middle, which now has even more than the others.

One more experiment which I made will close the discussion. The following colors were placed from right to left: orange, blue, red, yellow, black, green. I turned my back upon them, and therefore could guide the horse by verbal commands only. I asked him to bring the orange. Hans approached the yellow. I now called three times, allowing a short interval between the calls. At the first "Go!" he pa.s.sed from the yellow to the red, at the second from the red to the blue, and at the third from the blue to the orange, which he then proceeded to pick up and bring to me. I had noted this same thing in Mr. von Osten's tests, although there, there were often other factors entering in. By exercising the utmost precision in facing the cloths, and by using, in addition, suitable oral signs, I succeeded in getting Hans to bring, successively, each one of the six cloths in the row, and without a single error,--and all this in the presence of Mr. Schillings who did not have the slightest notion of the secret of my success.

We need hardly say, in pa.s.sing, that all that was true of the tests with colored cloths, was also true of the tests in which the placards were used. It was all the same to the horse whichever was placed before him.

We have thus tested all of the horse's supposed achievements. None of them stood the critical test. It would have been gratifying to have repeated some of the experiments and to have made Hans the object of further psychological investigations, but unfortunately he was no longer at my disposal after the publication of the report of the December-Commission. Some may say that we have had almost enough of a good thing, but we must bear in mind that many of the tests which were carried out,--such as those in which the method was that of "procedure without knowledge", those in which the ear-m.u.f.fs were used, those in which distractions were introduced,--had previously been made by other persons (see pages 41f, 45, 63), and with other results, than ours. A more thorough test, therefore, would have been doubly desirable.

CHAPTER III

THE AUTHOR'S INTROSPECTIONS

In the preceding chapter we asked: What is it that determines the horse's movements? Independent thinking, or external signs?--We found that it was solely external signs, which we described as certain postures and movements of the questioner. Beyond a doubt these necessary signs were given involuntarily by all the persons involved and without any knowledge on their part that they were giving any such signs. This is to be seen from their statements, which cannot be cavilled at, as well as from the fact that several of them even to-day still doubt the correctness of the explanation which we are here offering. I myself for some time made these involuntary movements quite unwittingly and even after I had discovered the nature of these movements and had thus become enabled to call forth at will all the various responses on the part of the horse, I still succeeded in giving the signs in the earlier nave involuntary manner. It is not easy, to be sure, to eliminate at once the influence of knowledge and to focus attention with the greatest amount of concentration on the number desired, rather than upon the movement which leads to a successful reaction on the part of the horse. To some this may appear impossible, but those who are accustomed to do work in psychological experimentation, will not deny the possibility of such exclusive concentration upon certain ideas.

If we now ask: "What occurred in the mind of the questioners, while they were giving the signs?", the answer can be found only by way of the process which in psychology is technically called "introspection", i. e.

observation of self. In the following we will give the most important results of this process of self-observation, which took place in the same period in which the observations recorded in the preceding chapter were made.

My first experiments were made while the horse was counting or solving arithmetical problems and were as follows: Mr. Schillings, who was alone with me in the horse's barn, asked me to think of several numbers, maintaining that the horse would be able to indicate them correctly upon being asked. He stood to the right of the horse, I stood erect and at the side of Mr. Schillings. There was no one else present. Somewhat skeptical in att.i.tude, I concentrated my mind consecutively on five small numbers. Hans tapped one of them incorrectly, one correctly and three by one unit too many. At the time I considered these attempts as unsuccessful and credited some curious chance with the answers which were correct, or nearly so. This was a mistake, for often during the following days, and in the absence of Mr. von Osten, the horse would give correct answers. Others, of course, would be incorrect, and usually the mistakes would be by one unit,--so that I soon saw that even in the horse's errors there lay some system. It will be seen that Hans responded to me from the very beginning, undoubtedly because I had had the opportunity of watching Mr. von Osten and Mr. Schillings and had thus patterned my behavior after theirs. I was not at first successful in getting the horse to respond correctly in the case of large numbers.

For in order to get complete control over the horse, and, what was, as I later discovered, more to the point, control of myself, some practice was needed. But I was able to work with the horse quite successfully, while I was still in the dark as to my own behavior.

From the very beginning Hans responded as promptly to those questions which I articulated merely inwardly, as to those which were spoken aloud. That all formulation of the question was unnecessary, however, was shown by the following experiments. If, for example, I did not think of any particular number until after the horse had begun to tap, and then fixed upon 5, he would tap 5. If, however, I told him to count to 6, but gave no further thought to the command after he had begun tapping, I would get an entirely wrong response. It was easy to obtain any answer one wished to a question, simply by focussing consciousness, with a great degree of intensity, upon the answer desired. Thus Hans answered my question: "How many angles has a hexagon?", first by 6, then 2, then 27, in accordance with the numbers that came into my mind. The animal always followed the ideas which were in the questioner's mind, and never his words, for it was with the former that the movements upon which the horse depended were bound up.

It was not enough, however, simply to imagine the number desired. It was furthermore necessary that the questioner be conscious of the moment when the horse reached that number. Larger numbers (above 6) were therefore, successful only when every single tap was inwardly counted to the end. The manner of counting was indifferent. Thus I counted 6 as follows: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and later: 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and then again: 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6. Finally I used the Greek letters and also nonsense syllables. And in all cases I obtained six taps, the correct response.

If, however, I simply counted the taps without knowing when the desired number was reached, the responses were always incorrect, e. g., I counted

For No. 10: 10, 10, 10 continuously, Hans tapped 13, " " 10: 1, 2, 3 to 10 " " 10, " " 12: 12, 12, 12 continuously, " " 15, " " 12: 1, 2, 3 to 12 " " 12.