4 minute read
Mental Health Corner
The Clever Hans Effect
By Rabbi Azriel Hauptman
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Clever Hans is a fascinating story about a horse from the turn of the twentieth century that amazingly has major implications for our understanding of human nature.
Wilhelm Von Osten was a German high school math teacher who believed that animals have a higher intelligence than we would otherwise believe. To prove his point, he tried teaching mathematics to Hans, his horse. After some training, he taught Hans to answer his number questions by tapping his hoof. If he would write the number three on a blackboard, Hans would tap his hoof three times. With this encouragement, Von Osten attempted to go beyond basic numbers and to teach mathematics to Hans. To his delight, Hans was an excellent student and quickly mastered the art of mathematics, all by using the tapping of his hoof to communicate the right answer. Hans even learned the ABCs and would tap once for an A, twice for a B, etc.
Von Osten was so excited with his discovery that starting in 1891 he started putting on free exhibitions all over Germany to show off the mathematical expertise of his horse. Large crowds would frequently come to observe this incredible phenomenon. He would ask Hans, “What is the square root of sixteen?” Hans would tap his hoof four times. He would ask, “If the first day of the month is a Wednesday then what is the date of the following Monday?” Hans would tap his hoof six times. Truly incredible! Hans’ fame spread far and wide to the degree that in 1904 the New York Times published a front-page article about Hans.
Hans’ uncanny mathematical prowess caught the attention of Germany’s board of education who asked Von Osten if he would allow them to study Hans and independently determine if Hans truly knew how to do math. Von Osten, who genuinely believed that Hans knew math, wholeheartedly agreed, and thus the “Hans Commission” was born. Two zoologists, a horse trainer, a psychologist, a circus trainer, and a few schoolteachers were assembled to study Hans. In 1904, they concluded that Hans really knew his math and they estimated his aptitude to be the level of a fourteenyear-old human!
However, at this point the Hans Commission turned over the investigation to Oskar Pfungst, a German biologist and psychologist. Initially, Pfungst replicated the previous findings. Then he decided to question Hans under many different scenarios. He discovered that the level of Hans’ accuracy was correlated to the distance between Hans and the questioner. The further the questioner stood from Hans, the lower the accuracy. Afterwards, Pfungst had the questioner ask math questions that the questioner did not know the answer himself. In this scenario, Hans’ accuracy plummeted to almost zero. Perhaps, wondered Pfungst, the questioner was somehow subconsciously communicating the answer to Hans.
At this stage, Pfungst turned his attention to the questioner. He immediately noticed that as Hans would start tapping, the questioner’s breathing, posture, and facial expressions would change and would show slight increases in tension as Hans came closer to the answer. Once Hans arrived at the right answer, the questioner’s face would relax and the tension would disappear. This effect was involuntary as they occurred whether the questioner tried to express them or suppress them. Pfungst concluded that this cue was the secret to Hans’ abilities. Hans, as a horse, was unable to understand even the most basic mathematical concept. What Hans was able to do was to read facial expressions and give the answer that the questioner was looking for.
The Clever Hans Effect has many ramifications. One of them is that scam artists posing as psychics can receive a lot of information from their patrons merely by reading their facial expressions as they talk to them. Our faces are an open book and reveal more about us than we would think. The next time someone seems to know something about you that they would have no way of knowing, ask yourself did you perhaps subconsciously communicate this information?
This is a service of Relief Resources. Relief is an organization that provides mental health referrals, education, and support to the frum community. Rabbi Yisrael Slansky is director of the Baltimore branch of Relief. He can be contacted at 410-448-8356 or at yslansky@ reliefhelp.org
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