Mental Radio

by Upton Sinclair

The Series of January 28, 1929

Mr. Sinclair asked his secretary “to make simple geometrical designs, letters and figures, thinking that these would be easier to recognize and reproduce.” It seems a little strange that when things were going on so well, he should have wanted a change, though any experiment is interesting. It is by no means certain, and I very much doubt from these and earlier printed experiments, that the assumption is a correct one. It may well be that geometrical diagrams, letters of the alphabet and such like fail to interest the agent and afford him a lively mental representation, as do pictures of miscellaneous objects. And if I understand rightly, another change of method was also initiated, and that was for Mrs. Sinclair to try to get the drawings not while the maker of them was gazing intently at them, but after they had left his hands. This certainly was often the case later on.

I wrote and asked Mr. Sinclair if Mrs. Sinclair was told the fact that this and several other series of original drawings consisted of geometrical drawings, letters and figures, and he said that she was not so told, that he would have regarded this as a vitiation of the experiments. It would certainly increase the chance of getting drawings right by guess, but it would hardly have ruined the experiments. In fact, some people think that the most scientific experiments are those in which the range of chance guess is limited to an extent known to the percipient, as when the problem is to determine which of the 52 cards of a pack is being looked at, or which of only ten known diagrams. This opinion is probably based on the fact that then the ratio of success to chance expectation can be exactly calculated, though why it should be more satisfactory to know that the chance of a correct guess is exactly 1 in 10 than it is not to be able to tell exactly what the chance is but to be sure at least that it cannot be 1 in 100, I do not know.

Unless I had carefully recorded at the time that there was no chance of the percipient having a hint that the drawings were now for a time to consist of geometrical designs, letters and figures, I would not dare to be certain of it after several years have passed. If Mrs. Sinclair had no inkling, the change in the general character of her drawings is a fact of great interest. But we will take cognizance only of whatever resemblance may or may not be found between the several reproductions and their originals.

The first series of drawings by the secretary were seven in number, and, says Mr. Sinclair, “They brought only partial successes; Craig would get elements of the drawing, but would not know how to put them together.... There is some element right in every one.” Let us see.

1. Agent’s drawing, a script B; Percipient’s drawing, a figure very like a script 3, practically the B without its vertical line.

2. Agt., a script S; Per., a script J. As made, each has two balloon-like parts joined at the small ends, certain details of course different.

3. Agt., a hexagon; Per., two lines forming an acute angle, like two sides of the hexagon, also a capital E with a line drawn down at an acute angle to the left from the upper extremity of the vertical line.

4. Agt., script M made with a peculiar twist in its first line; Per., almost precisely that first line with its twist.

5. Agt., a thin, long, quadrilateral, like a shingle; Per., (1st drawing) what would be almost exactly the same quadrilateral, narrow and long, but its shorter sides are wanting, and (2nd drawing) a closely similar quadrilateral, with another and longer one attached to its side at a sharp angle.

6. Agt., an interrogation point; Per., a figure hard to describe, a round dot with curves springing from it like concentric 3’s, and two parallel lines shooting to the left. The points which attract notice are the dot, like that of the original, and the curves similar to that of the interrogation point.

7. Agt., script E; Per., same minus the “curls.”

Several of the above are not impressive taken alone; taken together, the greater or less approaches to the several originals defeat chance, though how much no man can measure. Counter-tests by guessing will come the nearest to measuring.