Digital Deception

Assignment 8 -- Trouble with Teachers

Option C – Reality Monitoring

Reality monitoring is a process which attempts to differentiate between experienced events and imagined events, by looking at verbal characteristics which are indicative of real or imagined experiences. 7 criteria are thought to occur more in truthful statements (actually experienced events) while 1 criterion is though to occur more in deceptive statements (imagined experiences).

I felt that my results would be biased if I asked a friend to recall a story, because I think that they would be more likely to tell me the truth, and I also would be more likely to believe their story. So, I searched for a random blog, and took a story I found there. The blogger is a 17 year old girl from Singapore, and her blog post can be found here: http://raining-noodles.blogspot.com/2006/10/i-think-therefore-i-am-i-think.html.

Here is the story I analyzed: My apprehension around teachers dates back eight years. Ms G had left the class to attend to some important affair after warning us to remain quiet. But have you ever witnessed thirty children silently seated at their desks without the supervision of an adult? Neither have I. My classmate whispered to me that apparently it's impossible to hold a bottle of water with your arm stretched out straight for more than seven minutes, and one second later a group of us were counting out loud, my best friend's arm horizontal to the ground, a watch in my hand. Clearly, the search for truth is way more important than reducing noise pollution.

By the time Ms G's sneaky sneakers entered the classroom my fate had already been sealed, and because I'd been the timer, The Loud Person Who Did Most Of The Counting Out Loud Very Loudly, I alone was invited outside the classroom for a lecture by Ms G. Except that it would have actually been more comforting if she had actually articulated something, because all she did was stare at me with disappointment and rebuke in her eyes which brought me to tears more quickly than any onion I have ever diced. To this day I can still remember the route I took from my chair to the corridor and back, the flight of stairs to our right and sixty ears perked up behind me, and the orientation of our classroom -- A remarkable feat for someone who habitually loses her way in any area bigger than a small room, whose sense of direction parallels religion in that its existence may just be a matter of faith.

I found it interesting that this was written by a young adult, telling a story she experienced when she was 9 years old. Despite having happened 8 years ago, I found that it did exhibit all of the truth criteria. The story, despite being told in a very entertaining manner, was very clear, exhibiting clarity (#1) and also allowing for someone to be able to reconstruct the story themselves (#6). It is very easy to figure out the sequence of events from this story. The story also exhibits realism (#7), because most of us are familiar with schoolchildren, and know that it’s very hard for them to be quiet!

The author also included perceptual information (#2), such as hearing her teacher’s sneakers, and counting out loud. There was spatial information (#3) talking about the classroom and the hallway, and there was temporal information (#4) when she mentioned “one second later” the action took place. She also wrote about affect (#5), when she described tears in her eyes after being rebuked by her teacher.

She was very clear in writing this story, and doesn’t exhibit and cognitive operations (#8) at all. She never leaves any indication that she isn’t completely sure about what happens. And after analyzing this with reality monitoring, I would agree that she really does remember this situation, and that it really did happen like she says. The only concern I have is that this story, she says, did take place when she was a younger child, and Vrij mentions that younger children are more likely to believe that something took place when it actually did not take place. It could be that she constructed this event when she was a child, and today still believes that it did happen. This is why Vrij states that reality monitoring would probably be best on adults. But based on the criteria of reality monitoring, I believe that her story is true.

posted by Kate Fenner @ 7:05 PM