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Consistency in eyewitness reports of aquatic "monsters"

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Paxton_2016_AquaticMonsters_JoSE_FinalPubVersion.pdf (157.5Kb)
Date
15/03/2016
Author
Paxton, Charles George Mackay
Shine, Adrian J.
Keywords
Cryptozoology
Eyewitness testimony
Memory confirmity
Anecdote
QH301 Biology
GE Environmental Sciences
NDAS
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Abstract
Little work has been undertaken on the consistency/repeatabilityof reports of natural historical anomalies. Such information is usefulin understanding the reporting process associated with such accountsand distinguishing any underlying biological signal. Here we used intraclasscorrelation as a measure of consistency in descriptions of a variety of quantitative features from a large collection of firsthand accounts of apparentlyunknown aquatic animals (hereafter “monsters”) in each of two differentcases. In the first case, same observer, same encounter (sose), the correlationwas estimated from two different accounts of the same event from thesame witness. In the second case, the correlation was between two differentobservers of the same event (dose). Overall, levels of consistency weresurprisingly high, with length of monster, distance of monster to the witness,and duration of encounter varying between 0.63 and 1. Interestingly,there was no evidence that sose accounts generally had higher consistencythan dose accounts.
Citation
Paxton , C G M & Shine , A J 2016 , ' Consistency in eyewitness reports of aquatic "monsters" ' , Journal of Scientific Exploration , vol. 30 , no. 1 , pp. 16-26 . < http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/volume-30-number-1-2016 >
Publication
Journal of Scientific Exploration
Status
Peer reviewed
Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2016, Publisher / the Author(s). This work is made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the final published version of the work, which was originally published at www.scientificexploration.com / http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/volume-30-number-1-2016
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  • University of St Andrews Research
URL
http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/volume-30-number-1-2016
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/8676

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