Mailbag #151: Hoy Tweaks
/If you got them to just think of a random number before you even introduce the books, then ask them, after riffling to their "stop" page whether you should go back or forward that number of pages would that improve the effect or is it overcomplicating? My thoughts are that they might just remember that you allowed them to think of a completely random number (you might have to limit it to, say, between 1 and 20 depending on how many pages the book has).
My aim is always to keep it simple. Not give too many instructions. But the possibility that the participant's memory of the effect (which is often more impressive than what actually happened) could be that there was total randomness of choice is tempting. —AD
My first instinct is that this is a bit too overcomplicated. But everything is worth trying to see how it goes over.
The tweak I suggested was intended to be quick and casual, this one feels like you might end up getting bogged down as you’re counting ahead or back 15 pages or something.
What you might want to consider is saying something like, “We’ll use this book to select a random page, but I’ll also give you a free choice so we know there’s no way anyone could know what page we’d end up using. Give me a number between negative ten and positive ten, your choice.”
They say, negative seven.
You flip through the book and let them say stop. “Okay, we’re at 175. And what was the number you chose again?”
Negative seven.
“Okay, we’ll use your choice and subtract seven. So we’re at 175… 168, yes? That’s as fair as I can be. A random page where you said stop, and then a free choice of how many pages we’d go back or forward from there.”
They may, in time, misremember that “free choice of number” as a free choice of a page number.
Of course, you’re just modifying the force number by the opposite of their free choice.
What I mean is, if the force page is 100, and thei’r number is negative seven, then the number you give them will be your force page plus seven.
If their number is positive ten, you’ll tell them you stopped at the force page minus ten (90).
You get the idea.
There’s no rush to do this simple math because you have all the time you need between when they tell you their number and when you flip through the pages.
I like your addition. It seems you could easily make it even more effective by memorizing the first word on three subsequent pages in their book.
Then you could have them say stop, miscall the page, have them turn to that page in their book and THEN give them the option to stay on that exact page, go one page forward, or one page back. It should be easy enough to see which choice they make and therefore cue you to which word they end up on.
To me, it seems that would make the choice even more visceral since they would be able to see how the choice affects the end result. —MH
It’s not a bad idea, but the cost of this is that you must be left alone with the book for a few moments to memorize the words and for me, that’s too much of a trade-off.
In the past, I would sometimes have my friend grab any book from the library or book store, bring it back, and then tell them to grab a second book. Then while they got the second book, I would learn the force word from the first. But I’ve been doing some iteration testing of different elements of the Hoy Book Test for the past few months (possibly for discussion in the next book). And my feeling now is that it’s stronger to get the word in real time and for me to never be alone with the force book.
The feeling I want them to remember is they grabbed any two books and we immediately went into the performance.