The reversals found in the second GOP debate are now online and you can listen to those here. Also, don’t forget to check out the US 2016 Election page here. Many new reversals have been added to that page also.
Author Archives: reversejt
Another New Book On Reverse Speech – by Joshua Schmude
Reverse Speech In Theory & Practice: How To Use Your Unconscious Mind To Predict The Outcome Of Future Events – by Joshua Schmude
This book details the theories of David John Oates, an Australian researcher whom discovered and developed the fundamental theories associated with Reverse Speech, published in 1987 in his first book titled Beyond Backward Masking. Written by Joshua Schmude, a certified Reverse Speech Analyst, it takes the reader on a journey into the depths of their own Soul and, using qualitative research methodologies, teaches anyone how they may use there own speech reversals to predict the outcome of future events associated with Horse Racing or any other practical domain they wish. The hypothesis set forth in this work is sure to change the lives of anyone who reads it with an open mind. Make no mistake, the reader will learn something from this book they will never be taught in school, just sit back, turn the page, and enjoy the ride!
New Book on Reverse Speech – By Kathleen L. Hawkins
The Insiders – We Know What You’re Thinking and The Truth Will Be Told – By Kathleen L. Hawkins
Bestselling author and Reverse Speech student Kathleen L. Hawkins just had her first novel THE INSIDERS published. It’s the first in a series in which her characters use Reverse Speech to solve murder mysteries, discern hidden motives and agendas, and gain insights into human behavior.
Kathleen studied Reverse Speech for three years with David Oates. During that time she used reversal analysis on an actual recording of a police interrogation of a suspect who was later found guilty of murder. The suspect’s reversals revealed how he committed the crime and where he hid the body. Kathleen weaves those actual speech reversals into a fascinating, fictionalized story that’s a thought-provoking psychological thriller about a group of teenagers who solve a murder mystery using a “mind-reading machine,” the Reverse Speech technology.
Kathleen was one of the first students to earn a Reverse Speech Investigator certificate.
Response To Wikipedia On Reverse Speech
By Dina Patel, CRSP, CRST
When a critical viewpoint is assigned to any new theory or invention, it is an acceptable fact that it will initially attract approval as well as skepticism from the wider audience and some may even label it with the word “pseudo-science” as they do not fully comprehend the new concept in which it is to be applied. However, this kind of attitude and labeling can have a very prohibitive and damaging effect on any new discovery and can not only jeopardize its future evolution but also suppress new concepts and ideas taking shape so the word should be used with great caution and an in-depth evaluation with an unbiased approach is absolutely necessary before describing it in such a manner.
Reverse Speech is one such technology which has been unjustifiably branded in this way and is in dire need of correction and so this article proposes to counter the negative connotations which have been baselessly attached to it. What is more, there are many adherents of Reverse Speech who will vouch for its validity for use in a wide context but whose opinions, unfortunately, were not sought when compiling so-called evidence against it so there deserves to be a properly informed and balanced approach to the self-limiting views that have been aired in the past.
The founder, David Oates, has worked tirelessly and painstakingly in its development for over thirty years to present it in its current format so that when honestly reviewed it holds up to scrutiny. It therefore seems unfair to judge it in such a harsh manner as has been done by certain parties when a great deal of meticulous research and endeavor has been undertaken and especially, as mentioned before, when there are countless beneficiaries throughout the globe who are able to corroborate these concepts and who will attribute the positive transformation that has been afforded to them in its application and the lasting positive change that has been achieved in their lives as a result. Such irrefutable and far-reaching validations cannot be ignored and must be given opportunity for further examination to prove their efficacy.
David certainly does not claim to be a scientist, nor is he “more interested in making a profit than educating others”1 but like any person wishing to make a living he is proposing a new hypothesis which should be given at the very least, an airing, and at the very most an opportunity for further academia research that is open and transparent in its approach in order to validate his methods, rather than have them ridiculed by so-called “experts.”
If we examine the word pseudo-science in detail it is explained as a 2”claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status.” Reverse Speech does not deserve to be characterized by this label as David has documented evidence of countless hours of recordings over the many years of research he has carried out and even produced successful outcomes for recipients of this technology-individuals like you and me, who have greatly benefited from his invention.
It is also interesting that 3Princeton University historian of science Michael D. Gordin summed up his interpretation of pseudoscience in his book The Pseudoscience Wars (University of Chicago Press, 2012) “individual scientists designate a doctrine a ‘pseudoscience’ only when they perceive themselves to be threatened—not necessarily by the new ideas themselves, but by what those ideas represent about the authority of science, science’s access to resources, or some other broader social trend. If one is not threatened, there is no need to lash out at the perceived pseudoscience.”
When delving into this even more what is more revealing is that the word “pseudo-science” is bandied about at random and 4“is subject to adjectival abuse against any claim one happens to dislike for any reason.” Furthermore many of Freud`s theories and even Einstein`s theory of relativity could not be disproved (in the case of the latter the theory was later proven) but they have nonetheless withstood intense scrutiny and the test of time and so are now accepted as the norm in their respective fields.
There are several cases in point to give further ammunition to the incorrect labeling of pseudo-science to Reverse Speech and we only have to look at past evidence where science has been proven to miscalculation –
5Nassim Haramein predicted as early as 1991 that all galaxies are centered by black holes. He was dismissed and ridiculed at the time by mainstream science but now the very community that disparaged him are in awe of him and agree with the theories he expounded only because new technology can now reveal that this is what the forty closest galaxies do indeed contain.
Greek philosophers believed that the earth was spherical but could not prove it – Pythagoras in the 6th century BC and Parmenides in the 5th both thought this to be true but their theories were denounced by the Church and only given credence when around 330 BC the Greek philosopher Aristotle, through his observational evidence and physical theory of a lunar eclipse wrote about it.6
Complementary therapies are another example of how science and its flag-bearers dismissed it as a passing fad and labelled it as a “pseudo-science” because of insufficient data to prove otherwise. Many decades later these therapies are an acceptable part of treating individuals and have been found to work so effectively that they have been integrated within the NHS (National Health Service in the UK) in the U.S. and several other countries around the world by the very profession that chose to denounce it before.
7Edwin B. Twitmyer, a Professor of Psychology originally discovered the conditioned reflex and presented his data to The American Psychological Society in 1904 but his theories had no impact on his peers and so due to a lack of support he abandoned his experiments. Significantly a few years later when a Russian, Ivan Pavlov put forward a similar hypotheses he was given a platform to explain what he had discovered and then given credit for the discovery and the scientific community that rejected Twitmyer`s work now lauded Pavlov`s work despite showing similar results.
Although not categorized as pseudo-science the example above is a classic case where science, with its restrictive thinking at the time, failed to embrace new ideas and concepts, a result of which has the effect of restraining and even strangling new ideas which stunt development in various fields and it further prevents us from evolving into better informed individuals. We should be more open to those people who possess “forward thinking minds” and dare to explore and go beyond the norms of restrictive current thinking and these lessons of the past should be learnt. Edwin B. Twitmyer (as mentioned above) surrendered to the negative response from his peers and gave up further research he was conducting regarding the conditioned reflex, only to discover years later that had he continued his work, he would have contributed greatly to the understanding of the mechanism of behavior, and subsequently, gained the recognition from his peers that was instead conferred upon his successor, Pavlov, who took up the baton in this field of research.
8In a similar vein articles by Byrne and Normand on their “Skeptical Inquirer” website concerning Reverse Speech entitled “The Demon Haunted Sentence: A Skeptical Analysis of Reverse Speech” claim that the research they have carried out condemn Reverse Speech as unethical and an attempt to fleece money from the unsuspecting even quoting various research papers to substantiate their views.
It is unfortunate that they have not taken their task of research seriously and only focused their attention solely on web articles about Reverse Speech as this is a very narrow minded view whose approach inevitably leads it towards a conclusion that is biased and limited. Had they been more judicious in their research, they would have found insurmountable evidence in its favor, instead of belittling the work that has been put forward by David Oates.
What is more, some of the referencing they have utilized dates back to an era when new technologies were unavailable and in a specialized field where clarity of audio input is essential to gain notable results, it is indefensible that they have not been so discerning in their research and opted to disregard the evidence that has been mounting up to support what is regarded as a very powerful tool by the beneficiaries who have experience of it and who can therefore vouch for its efficacy in the formats that David has described.
There are two sides to a coin and if Byrne and Normand had taken the time to peruse all the available data at their disposal their conclusions would have shown Reverse Speech to be precisely what it is.
Furthermore, in referencing an article by 9Vokey and Reid they fail to understand that the primary purpose of that research was to identify how the impact of messages inserted in the media affected behavior in the listener or viewer (they concluded that this was not the case.) In fact some of the messages that Vokey and Reid refer to were recordings of music where messages were placed in records intentionally by artists who then engineered them in such a way as to be inaudible when played normally but when played backwards revealed clear and distinct messages. This type of recording known as backward masking was prevalent in the late 60`s 70`s and 80`s and artists readily admit that the concept was devised as a novel way to gain publicity and sell more records (see website www. backwardmasking.com.) and so Vokey and Reid`s statement “that the apparent presence of backward messages in popular music is a function more of active construction on the part of the observer than of the existence of the messages themselves” can easily be refuted by those artists.
Byrne and Normand go on to add that “…existence of reverse speech is ecologically invalid” and another statement in which they comment that “..Backwards” language does not convey meaning to a listener – in other words it does not make any sense….” and “to our knowledge there is not one empirical investigation of reverse speech in any peer-reviewed journal….” only adds to their ignorance of this subject as the founder of Reverse Speech, David Oates, can corroborate with over thirty years plus documented evidence to counter their statements. They cannot “peer review” a subject of which they have no prior knowledge of and for which there are, at present, no peers to refer to because it is such a novel and unique concept.”
10Byrne and Normand also use Skinner`s experiments and his invention of the Verbal Summator to substantiate their claims regarding Reverse Speech but Skinner, in his experiments (1936) used recordings which were played softly and so the subjects were already at a disadvantage when that experiment was being conducted because the spoken word was difficult to decipher and the results themselves confirmed this when it was concluded that “illusory changes occur if the repeated word is faint or indistinct …”. The recordings that have been compiled through years of application by David Oates are clear and distinct and what is spoken cannot be mistaken. Furthermore the recordings used in the experiment by Skinner used technology that was available at the time – record players which were placed on a turntable which then revolved in order for sound to be heard, or cassette tapes later on. In the current age of digital revolution that is available to us, sound is much more audible and technology more advanced to allow us to achieve further clarity and definition that would not have been possible then and so surely research should be conducted using modern methods which will prove to be more productive.
We would therefore invite further research before disparaging remarks about Reverse Speech are made.
In fact as far back as 1988, experiments conducted by an Adelaide psychologist who ran brain wave analysis tests confirmed that brain activity was altered significantly in both right brain and left brain hemispheres when reverse speech occurred so it would be more appropriate to conduct further in-depth tests before comments such as those made by Byrne and Normand are made.
11Prior to this in a report by Robert Cohn in Science Magazine in 1971, another experiment to differentiate cerebral processing of data has also “indicated that the right cerebral hemisphere processes noises and other nonverbal data and that the left cerebral hemisphere processes verbal material.”
12In another experiment to analyse neural responses during speech the results were that “different neural events occur in the left hemisphere during analysis of linguistic versus non-linguistic parameters of the same acoustic signal.”
This coincides with what David himself has stipulated, that the right hemisphere of the brain deals with imagery and other precepts whilst the left hemisphere deals with linearity and logic and other functionalities. This theory is also shared in other models which are more readily accepted now but were once themselves similarly open to ridicule.
As to the presence of Reverse Speech an experiment conducted by Monash University in Australia concludes that “…for any Forward Speech sequence, there will obviously be some alleged Reverse Speech sequences which are more readily heard than others…. and we do not deny that in some cases Oates has been adept at finding such sequences…”. The University was unwilling to further their research and promptly halted any further investigations into this matter.
13Byrne and Norman add “In their critique of Oates’s theories, Newman (sic) and Curtain (1998) conducted a simple experiment in which subjects under various conditions tried to detect examples or reverse speech from Oates’s audiotapes. As expected (note: negative bias ‘as expected’), they found that subjects who were told what to listen for were much more successful in hearing the phrases than those not expecting what they would hear.” However, what Newbrook and Curtain actually found was quite the contrary, which privately they have admitted. After conferring with Oates on the experimental model, they proceeded to ignore those protocols (having gone to the trouble to confer and gather them), and still found and noted positive results.
14In their article Byrne and Normand compare RS with facilitated communication and their lack of understanding of Reverse Speech becomes evident – they state themselves that facilitated communication “is no longer considered to be scientifically valid by most professionals” and so to then compare it to RS is a misnomer. What is more interesting is that the experiment they refer to was conducted with subjects who presented with communication handicaps in speech and its conclusion also confirmed that that model would be inappropriate with those individuals possessing motor skills “… In facilitated communication, a non-speaking individual receives assistance from a “facilitator” who guides his or hands across a keyboard so that a message can be typed. Curiously many nonspeaking individuals who seemed to benefit from facilitated communication did not have motor deficits…it was therefore unclear why motor assistance would help them communicate…”
So if there is to be an argument against Reverse Speech it would be appropriate to challenge it with evidence that has been compiled in this era, rather than research that has been gathered in the past which has no validity or bearing on this subject.
It is interesting that when David was invited to speak to the U.S. secret service organisation circa 1991 his files and notes were “borrowed” and he was never to hear from them again. Is this the type of response you would expect if Reverse Speech is adjudged to be “a potential disaster” as claimed by Byrne and Norman? To further claim that there is “great potential for harm” discredits all the hard work he has been doing, after all he has been in the field of therapy for well over forty years, even before he started reverse speech and he has other qualifications to boot – he is a certified youth pastor, counselor and hypnotherapist, to say nothing of the experience he has accumulated over the years.
The article by Byrne and Norman infers that there is a lack of empirical evidence to substantiate the claims that David Oates makes so let us first define what empirical evidence is. In an article submitted by Alina Bradford to livescience.com she defines it as 15“…information acquired by observation or experimentation. This data is recorded and analysed …and is a central process as part of the scientific method. The scientific method begins with scientists forming questions, or hypotheses, and then acquiring the knowledge to either support or disprove a specific theory.” The information that David Oates has in his possession has been gathered using this criteria.
Aside from the evidence he has accumulated over the years, the speech reversals that have been documented by David Oates adhere to strict protocols which would meet the structure required for grammatical sentencing and there is a stringent list of conditions that must be passed. To then claim the phenomenon of pareidolia (where the human brain perceives there to be patterns of speech in random noise) and phonetic reversal without being privy to all of the documented evidence he has gathered is completely nonsensical.
16In his article “From Abracadabra to Zombies” in the Skeptic`s Dictionary, R.T.Carroll goes on to criticize the theme when David relates to his experience with infants and children being able to communicate in reverse language before being able to converse in “forward speech” by stating “…And where is the evidence for his claims about infants and speech, claims which contradict everything that is known about the development of the human brain and speech in children?…”It appears to be a very limited view as there is current research which suggests otherwise in that “17newborn brains are full of feverish activity and… are already gathering and processing important information from the world around them. At just two days after birth, babies are already able to process language using processes similar to those of adults… researchers have demonstrated that they are sensitive to the most important parts of words, the edges, a cognitive mechanism which has been repeatedly observed in older children and adults.” What is more …”18several findings have observed that from birth until the age of six months, infants can discriminate the phonetic contrasts of all languages. Researchers believe that this gives infants the ability to acquire the language spoken around them…” and even Steven Pinker from M.I.T., no less, confirms that 19“Babies can think before they can talk …. babies achieve the feats of phonetic distinctions used in their parents language before they produce or understand words…… it is virtually impossible to show how children could learn a language …. they have a considerable amount of non-linguistic cognitive machinery in place before they start..” so we can discount Mr. Carroll`s criticism.
David also mentions the idea of metaphors and correlates it with past traditions and mythology and his ideas originate from past luminaries who themselves have researched these ideas and which have gained respect and acceptance by their peers.
Language is a complex and unique form through which we humans communicate and Reverse Speech just adds to that kaleidoscope.
For any novice Reverse Speech is a fascinating and perplexing concept to grasp and as in all new endeavors, with practice comes proficiency, so we should not be disenchanted by the mis-information that is presented by a narrow mind-set. Instead we should be more emboldened and committed to demonstrate the validity of Reverse Speech through our practice and the challenge is to achieve and accumulate more evidence in order to generate enthusiasm for further research into this less well-known field.
As Samuel Smiles, the Scottish author and well-known government reformer said “The very greatest things – great thoughts, discoveries, inventions – have usually been nurtured in hardship, often pondered over in sorrow and at length established with difficulty.”
Read Also:
Response To Skeptical Enquirer
Reverse Speech Reply To Monash
Linguistic Analysis Of Some Reversals
Footnotes:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_speech
2. www.scientificamerican.com › Mind & Brain › September 2011 › Skeptic
3. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-pseudoscience/ What Is Pseudoscience? Distinguishing between science and pseudoscience is problematic – By Michael Shermer | Aug 16, 2011
4. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-pseudoscience/
5. http://www.thrivemovement.com/the_code-fundamental_pattern
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth
7. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6749963
8. http://www.csicop.org/si/show/demon-haunted_sentence_a_skeptical_analysis_of_reverse_speech1/
9. http://www.academia.edu/7175118/Subliminal_Messages_Between_the_Devil_and_the_Media John R Vokey & J Don Read- Psychology in acton , American Psychologist 40: pp 1231–1239 – November 1985 American Psychologist
10. Auditory Perception: A New Synthesis P180 By Richard M. Warren
11. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/172/3983/599.abstract – Science 7 May 1971: Vol. 172 no. 3983 pp. 599-601 -DOI: 10.1126/science.172.3983.599
12. Auditory Evoked Potentials during Speech Perception -Charles C. Wood1, William R. Goff1, Ruth S. Day2
Science 24 September 1971: Vol. 173 no. 4003 pp. 1248-1251 DOI: 10.1126/science.173.4003.1248
13. https://reversespeech.com/2000/03/response-to-skeptical-enquirer/
14. http://www.csicop.org/si/show/demon-haunted_sentence_a_skeptical_analysis_of_reverse_speech1/
15. http://www.livescience.com/21456-empirical-evidence-a-definition.html Empirical Evidence: A Definition by Alina Bradford, Live Science Contributor – March 24, 2015
16. http://skepdic.com/reversespeech.html
17. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150721081725.htm
18. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_acquisition – Main articles: Sensitive periods § Language and Critical period hypothesis
19. http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Papers/Py104/pinker.langacq.html – Steven Pinker Massachusetts Institute of Technology Chapter to appear in L. R. Gleitman, M. Liberman, and D. N. Osherson (Eds.), An Invitation to Cognitive Science, 2nd Ed. Volume 1: Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Monash University Report On Reverse Speech
David Oates’ Theory of Reverse Speech
By Mark Newbrook & Jane Curtain of Monash University
In this paper we comment on David John Oates’ hypothesis of Reverse Speech (henceforth RS) and its applications, and report on a small experiment which we conducted. For information on RS we draw mainly on Oates’ 1996 book Reverse Speech: Voices from the unconscious (Promotion Publishing, San Diego).
Oates, Australian-born but now residing in California, claims to have discovered RS, a previously unreported human language phenomenon. According to Oates, as the brain is constructing and delivering the sounds of speech, two messages (normally in the same language) are communicated simultaneously: one is communicated forwards and is what everyone hears and responds to consciously, while the other is communicated in reverse and is what people hear and respond to unconsciously. It is this reversed form that Oates calls Reverse Speech (RS). Oates alleges that the reversals can be heard as clear, grammatical statements (usually brief) which are mixed in amongst some gibberish. RS is accessed by recording a section of forward speech (henceforth FS) and playing the recording in reverse.
Oates claims that the content of reversals is nearly always related to the equivalent FS dialogue. He believes that RS often gives additional information to accentuate or strengthen the FS speech; it also tends to reveal an individual’s unspoken thoughts which may be in total contradiction to their conscious FS. Therefore, it can be used as an effective tool by counsellors, legal professionals, parents, teachers, politicians, etc, to discover unspoken truths. Oates himself is currently training individuals to become RS analysts for such purposes. Many of the RS sequences posited by Oates appear rather obscure and Oates considers that the messages in question are couched in metaphors, which of course require elucidation by RS analysts.
Oates believes that very young children begin to produce coherent RS (in the form of reversals of ‘babbling’, etc) well before they produce normal FS in their first language (as early as midway through their first year, indeed).
If RS really exists, the consequences for our view of human linguistic and mental activity are (as Oates himself says) very major.
Methodological and Theoretical Problems and Implausibilities
Investigation of Oates’ claims is hindered by a number of obscurities in his discussion. The most important of these involves what appears to be a crucial methodological and theoretical inconsistency.
Oates states that in the early stages of his research he tried to determine whether the cases of RS he had noted were, in fact, the result of what he calls phonetic coincidence, by which he means the ‘accidental’ occurrence of very short sequences (typically single short words) which are (almost) the same in FS and RS (ie ‘phonological palindromes’, eg dad) or where the reversal of the FS sequence yields another equally possible sequence (so that there is a pair of corresponding forms, each of which is (approximately) the reversal of the other; eg say/yes). He calls these phenomena (both types) coincidental reversals, and does not regard them as genuine RS.
Oates is not consistent as to which sequences do and do not count as coincidental reversals. More importantly, however, his distinction between ‘genuine RS’ and coincidental reversals is incoherent. The definition which he provides for genuine RS involves reference to ‘the phonetic construction of the forward speech sounds as they were said in the instant they were captured on tape’ (Oates 1996: 15). Unfortunately, this definition applies equally well to Oates’ ‘coincidental reversals’, and indeed to any reversal of an FS sequence.
This distinction is, in fact, part of an attempt by Oates to claim that, in cases of genuine RS, one and the same FS sequence, uttered in very much the same way, may emerge as quite different RS sequences on different occasions (Oates 1996: 33-34); he is therefore concerned to exclude cases such as dad and say/yes where this is obviously false. But the suggestion is quite implausible: there is nothing present in RS other than reversed FS sequences, which will obviously differ only to the extent that the FS differs.
This is one feature of Oates’ theory which is very implausible (we shall list some others below). It also reduces the reproducibility of his investigations, in that evidence that a given FS sequence did not produce the RS sequence posited by Oates when reversed could be countered with the claim that there was no reason why it should produce the same RS sequence on different occasions. Although we do not accept this, we worked only with the recordings provided by Oates himself in our own experiment, so as not to invite such objections.
There are a number of other implausibilities in Oates’ theory (Oates’ claims are all from Oates 1996):
- Reversals of FS are unlikely to yield coherent sequences in the same language; the structures of sound systems work against this. There are only a few exceptions to this, and the very few ‘genuine’ cases of RS that actually work are among these.
- Minor differences of accent between speakers and differences in the emotional state of a speaker can have only minor effects on FS and hence on reversals (see above), contrary to Oates’ claims.
- Again contrary to Oates’ claims, the frequency of RS cannot depend on the mode or style of the discourse; because the only relevant factor is the sounds of the FS sequences (see above).
- RS cannot occur at a different rate from FS, as Oates claims, for the same reason.
- It is difficult to see how the vastly complex linguistic and psychological systems which would be needed for the production of RS could have escaped so completely the notice of scholars in these fields (especially when they would have to operate in all languages).
- If Oates’ claims about the production of RS by young children are correct, a great deal of what is taken to be known about child language acquisition and cognitive development must be utterly wrong.
Assessment of Factual Claims Made in Support of the RS Theory
Despite these basic implausibilities and problems with the theory, it is nevertheless possible in principle that it is in fact correct, at least in part. The only empirically sound way to test this is obviously to conduct an experiment. We decided to replicate Oates’ initial experiment (Oates 1996: 14-15). An additional variant was introduced which investigated the possibility that the participants’ decisions would be influenced if they were told that an intelligible sentence was not necessarily present.
Forty linguistically naive subjects, all of whom were native speakers of English, and none of whom were familiar with the alleged RS phenomenon, participated in this experiment. The subjects were haphazardly divided into four groups of ten (A-D) and each group experienced a different set of procedures.
Six short recordings of alleged RS sequences were taken from Oates’ audio tapes. These recordings were selected as they were among the examples Oates frequently refers to in his publications and tapes, and were therefore thought to be among those Oates favours to support his claims. By selecting the examples upon which Oates places the most weight after many years of promoting RS, we were of course disposing our study in favour of confirming Oates’ hypothesis. However, by the same token, such a selection would also render any negative findings more strongly conclusive. Similarly, the sequences selected were not hidden in larger sequences containing ‘gibberish’ – another aspect which favours Oates.
The recordings were selected from three groups: two were taken from the alleged RS of well known adult male celebrities; two were taken from the alleged RS of unknown adult male speakers; and two were taken from the alleged RS of Oates’ infant daughters. The recordings were played three times (at different speeds) in the following order:
- I have an older sister.
- Man will space walk.
- Daddy loves Mum.
- I skinned them all.
- I now come here.
- Someone saw the weapon.
Group A participants were provided with a list of the six alleged RS sequences and were asked to indicate whether they could hear any of the sentences, words or syllables specified on the list. Group B participants were provided with a list of sequences which were entirely different from the RS sequences alleged by Oates, but which were similar in terms of the number of syllables and the quality of vowel sounds within each sequence.
These pieces were as follows:
- My man can go at Easter.
- Bats hit cave walls.
- Mandy hugged them.
- I still was poor.
- My house was queer.
- Nothing more can happen.
The selection of these bogus RS sequences represents a modification to Oates’ own experiment; it appears that his bogus sequences bore no resemblance to the ‘genuine’ RS sequences other than the number of syllables.
Group C participants were not provided with a written list of the alleged RS sequences but were, however, told that an intelligible sentence was present in each of the six recordings, and were asked to record any such sequence they could hear. Group D participants were also not provided with a written list of the alleged RS sequences. However, they were not told that there was an intelligible sentence in each of the six recordings; they were told that there might be. This group, therefore, represented a new variant on the procedure which Oates employed.
Each subject received a score out of a possible six ‘correct’ (target) responses for complete sentences, a score out of a possible 24 ‘correct’ responses for words, and a score out of a possible 29 ‘correct’ responses for syllables. Independent-samples t-tests were performed to compare the responses between the groups for the mean number of ‘correct’ sequences provided.
As Figure 1 suggests, Group A subjects provided a much greater number of ‘correct’ sequences than did the other three groups, Group B subjects provided a greater number of ‘correct’ sequences than did Groups C and D, and Group D subjects provided a greater number of ‘correct’ sequences than did Group C. Statistical analyses revealed that most of the differences observed were indeed significant.
An interesting result is that the Group D participants (who were told that there might be an intelligible sentence in each recording) provided an overall higher mean number of ‘correct’ responses than did the Group C subjects (who were told there would definitely be an intelligible sentence in each recording. Although one would reasonably expect the Group C participants to try harder than the Group D participants to find such sequences, even where the evidence for them was quite weak, the reverse was found. One possible explanation for this is that the Group D participants concentrated very hard to hear such sequences, and accordingly even imagined some to exist, whereas the Group C participants initially believed the sequences would be obvious, and subsequently gave up trying to hear such sequences when their alleged existence proved difficult to hear.
The other results are less difficult to explain. It would seem that the power of suggestion is an important factor in the recognition of RS sequences, as in all cases Groups A and B participants provided significantly more target responses than did Groups C and D. The analyses suggest that if individuals are told what they might expect to hear, they will often accept that they have heard these sequences – particularly if the number of syllables is the same and the vowel qualities are similar. Although the Group B participants (who were informed of bogus sequences) did not provide as many ‘correct’ responses as the Group A participants (who were informed of Oates’ proposed sequences), this can be explained by the fact that Oates’ sequences, whether genuine or not, provide a better representation of the sounds than do the bogus sequences. For any FS sequence, there will obviously be some alleged RS sequences which are more readily heard than others, and we do not deny that in some cases Oates has been adept at finding such sequences.
Oates (1996: 14-15) is not entirely specific in the summary of findings he provides for his alleged controlled experiment: he does not disclose specific quantitative figures, nor does he reveal any analyses which he might have conducted. In the absence of such information, it is difficult to compare the results of the current experiment with those obtained by Oates. We can only conclude that the current experiment, albeit informal, was analysed more scientifically, and is therefore more reliable.
Obviously, our findings do not support Oates’ claims; there is no evidence that listeners can hear the alleged RS sequences unless ‘prompted’ in advance.
Two further connected points must be made here. Firstly, it is important to note that even Oates asserts that the subjects in his Group 3 were only able to hear and transcribe ‘key words’ in the alleged RS sequences, even after three listenings (Oates 1996: 15). He does not specify how many words were generally heard or transcribed in this way, and apparently leaves it to the reader to imagine which words were involved. He does not even provide a definition of the word key in this context. Taking his statements literally, it is quite possible to conclude that his subjects had only a little more success than our own. Secondly, there is a prima facie near-contradiction between Oates’ claim that his subjects had what he deems to be a considerable measure of success in identifying RS sequences without prompting (which of course he must claim if he is to suggest that his experiment confirmed his hypothesis) and the claim he makes elsewhere (see below) that it takes several months for most people to learn to hear RS sequences ‘correctly’.
There are a number of other empirical tests, of varying degrees of formality, which can be applied to Oates’ material; some of these have been carried out (largely confirming the above findings) and others are envisaged.
Applications and Claimed Implications of RS
As well as all these problems with the basic theory of RS, there are a number of aspects of its application which are problematic or alarming:
- Oates pays little attention to the findings of mainstream psychology, but develops enormously complex, poorly supported psychological theories, notably on the role of the metaphors which he claims to find in RS and associated structures in the mind.
- Many of the concepts which Oates associates with RS are of a ‘New Age’/‘fringe’ nature: the ‘collective unconscious’ and access through this to ‘ancient mysteries’ and the like, prediction of the future (through RS), telepathy/ESP, channelling, Neurolinguistic Programming, and also some idiosyncratic and extreme versions of the Christian world view (including the suggestion that by paying attention to RS one can avoid sin, live very much longer than is now usual, etc.).
- Oates and his followers have been applying the analysis of RS in various practical domains, some of them involving matters of great sensitivity and potential harm. If RS is not genuine, this work is valueless at best and quite possibly extremely damaging. The areas in question include:
- child psychology (Oates 1996: 60-73)
- alleged cases of child molestation (Oates 1996: 68-70)
- other alleged offences (Oates 1996: 188-96)
- the analysis and treatment of sexual and per sonal problems (Oates 1996: 125-69)
- The RS enterprise has a very overtly commercial nature; for instance, one hour of an analyst’s time working with a tape costs at least US$125.00, the fees for courses run to thousands of dollars and ‘reversing machines’ are sold at around US$200.00. Students are required to sign forms excluding refunds and threatening that all unpaid fees will be due immediately in the event of withdrawal.
- RS practitioners are ‘certified’, and this certification has reportedly been recognised officially at least in California. However there is no evidence that those who are certified have any of the other relevant knowledge or skills.
- The tone of much of the RS literature is highly dogmatic, and Oates also compares his ‘discovery’ with past scientific breakthroughs (as is common in fringe literature).
- In his promotional material, Oates employs a number of suspect practices. Most obviously he repeatedly informs listeners of the RS sequences which they should expect to hear, which as we have shown has a major effect on whether or not they accept his conclusions. In this context it should be noted that Oates repeatedly claims that untrained listeners cannot readily hear RS without such help; but this would not be true for listeners with phonetic training (if RS were real), and Oates’ position here seems to contradict his earlier claim (see above) that untrained listeners could readily hear RS sequences in his initial experiment. It does appear that Oates is trying to ‘have it both ways’.
- Oates (1996: 188-189) claims that the Australian police have used RS in their work, and elsewhere he claims that other government agencies have done so. There appears to be no evidence of this and in fact there is some evidence to the contrary.
- Oates’ material features many quotations endorsing or supposedly endorsing his work, but many of these appear to come from his own associates and they contain many obscurities. Some of the comments cited appear irrelevant. Oates does not list his own qualifications, even though he makes many emphatic statements about a wide range of subjects.
Many of these criticisms can equally be made about the work of Oates’ followers, much of which is available on the Net.
Oates’ Knowledge of Linguistics
Given that RS is supposed to be basically a linguistic phenomenon, one might hope that – whatever his shortcomings in other fields – Oates would prove to be well informed about linguistics. However, this is not the case. We have already seen that many of his claims about RS are implausible on linguistic grounds, and in fact it does not appear that he has read more than superficially in the linguistic literature. Other obvious errors (etc.) made by Oates involve: very superficial and inaccurate treatments of matters of intonation, various other errors involving the description and analysis of pronunciation, a naively folk-linguistic approach (at least terminologically) to the issue of grammaticality (accompanied by a neglect of some grammatical issues which would be of great interest if RS were real), acceptance of folklinguistic errors on the origins of languages, a rather cavalier attitude to items in foreign languages, a naive linking of RS with palindromes (‘reverse’ phenomena involving written language), the apparent (ludicrously wrong) suggestion that the central aspects of FS are completely consciously controlled (in contrast with RS, which is unconsciously generated), etc.
More specifically, Oates (1996: 102-104) lists six ‘guidelines’ or criteria on which he claims to rely in determining whether or not a given sequence in a reversal actually counts as genuine RS. These criteria involve linguistic features of the sequences such as numbers of syllables, audible spaces and junctures, individual phonetic segments and intonation contours. On this basis Oates rates reversals on a scale of 5-1, with the top rating of 5 being reserved for reversals which meet all six criteria. Even these, it should be noted, do not appear especially impressive to us; but in addition the six criteria are all seriously flawed. Three of them are invalid (they do not apply to FS), two are frequently not met in alleged cases of RS, and the sixth is obscure.
Given all this, it seems unfortunate that Oates did not make more use of linguistic expertise in developing his theory.
Conclusion
We believe that we have given Oates’ ideas a fair examination in this paper. There are a number of specific issues which we have not examined; we hope to tackle some of these in later papers. There are also a number of issues which fall somewhat outside our range of professional expertise (qua linguists) and which might be of interest to experts in the relevant disciplines. However, many of these latter issues do not arise in practical terms unless the basic theory of RS, which is essentially a linguistic theory, ‘holds water’. We think we have shown above that the status of the RS theory is theoretically and methodologically problematic, that the theory’s factual claims could very well turn out to be largely false and certainly are not supported by our own investigations, that the theory is implausible in various ways, that the background knowledge of linguistics displayed by the originator and promoter of the theory is inadequate, and that there are various other problems associated with the theory and with the associated practices.
Given this, we do not recommend that the RS theory be accepted (unless much better evidence and argumentation is advanced in support of it) nor do we suggest that any action (especially in sensitive or important areas of activity) be taken solely on the basis of any aspect of this theory or any specific claims associated with it.
This is a summarised version of a much longer paper which we have prepared by way of a preliminary report on a package of materials promoting David John Oates’ ‘Reverse Speech’ theory which was sent to Victorian Skeptics for comment. The full paper will be made available on request. We would like to express our thanks to Kieran Power for his assistance with the technical aspects of the project.
Full details of all statistical analyses employed are described in the longer paper mentioned above.
August 2015 Newest Reversal Additions
This month has been a somewhat wild month for speech reversals. But first, I would like to remind all to keep checking the US 2016 Election page for updates. There were 10 new reversals on Donald Trump added and one on Bernie Sanders. Also, the reversals from the First GOP Republican Debate are up online. Now, I don’t even know what to think about the reversal on Rudy Giuliani dressed in drag and speaking to Donald Trump. You will have to figure that out yourselves. Next we have 3 new reversals on President Obama. Then we have a couple of new reversals added to the Sarah Palin page. We also received a reversal on Netenyahu speaking about the baby that was burned to death in an attack. Lastly, there is a new reversal that has been added to the Pastor John Hagee page. Hope you enjoy them. RS Staff