Thread: What would your reaction be?

Psychological Experiment
Props:
1 apartment or small living space
1 recording (23 hours of clock's tick-tock sound, cut slightly so that it is just occasionally "off." See Lord Vetinari's office clock in the Discworld books)
1 silent analog clock
1 volunteer
Process: Volunteer knows that they are being studied for a psychologcal experiment, What they don;t know is what the experiment is. Place the recording, looped, in the silent analog clock (so the sound of the clock itself does not interfere with the recorded sound). Remove all other analog clocks from the area (thus the reason for the small space). Wait for a reaction.
Proposed possible results of experiment:
-Subject becomes increasingly paranoid, possibly believing that house is haunted
-subject becomes uneasy, and eventually depressed or easily confused
-subject realises the clock is off, and that that was the purpose of the experiment
-subject does not react, and for all outside observation appears to be unaffected

Of these, or any other reaction, what do you think you would eventually do? I think I would obsessively search for the center of the experiment, and later the source of my unease, until I either realised it was the clock (likely, if it's an experiment that I have thought about previously), or become paranoid, or possibly even convinced of a paranatural force causing the apartment to be posessed or haunted. What do you think the effect would be on you?

I probubly wouldn't react. I find when things are only slightly off my mind adjusts them to seem right. Plus I've been practicing not paying attention to the time.

Is there any instructions with this experiment? If not, I'd probably be asleep through most of it, clocks that tick relax me.... even if they are off a bit.

What would be the basis for believing the place would be haunted? I think you would just assume the clock was broken.

Ric

Paranoia, if you didn;t notice it was the clock. the point of the experiment is that they know something is going on, but not what it is. The subject's daily habits would be the same, except they live in the apartment until wieither they discover that it is the clock, and say so, or they have a noticeable change in behavior or demeanor.

And, Ric, it's not the clock's time that is off, it's trhe ticking that is edited so that every so often it is just sligtly not what it should be.

Originally Posted by wikipedia

Lord Vetinari also has a strange clock in his waiting-room. While it does keep time accurately enough, it sometimes ticks and tocks out of sync (example: "tick, tock... ticktocktick, tock...") and occasionally misses a tick or tock altogether, which has the net effect of turning one's brain "into a sort of porridge". (Feet of Clay, Going Postal).

But done subtly, and only on occasion, often enough that it is bothersome but not often enough that you can tell what, exactly, just went wrong, nor where and how.

Cool...

It would be interesting. It probably wouldn't work on me now as I know what the experiment is; but I still think I'd have slept through most of it!

I'd sleep through work too if I thought I could get away with it!

I'm not sure what I would do. I mean, if the sound is a tick-tock thing and it's off, and it sounds like a clock. The clock would be the first thing I'd check. And I probably wouldn't notice the ticks until everything is quiet in the room.