What was this video I was shown during an experiment?

September 2, 2010 9:35 PM

When I was in college, probably in 1995 or 96, I was shown two short videos as part of an experiment that a graduate student in linguistics was conducting and then asked to describe the events in each. I was later told that the first video was from a well-known psychology experiment and was shown to subjects as a control. The experiment was about my reaction to the second video. Ever since then I've been wondering about that first video.

It was short - less than ten minutes.

There was no dialogue or very little.

I remember it starting out with a group of boys and an apple tree, then switched to following a man on a bicycle. The events took place in the countryside, not in a city.

I remember that the people in it looked french.

I may be misremembering some of these details.

What was the video? What was the experiment?

posted by bq to Science & Nature (2 answers total)

Best answer: I believe you are talking about The Chinese Pear Stories. They were used to study how people in different cultural groups narrate the same sequence of events.
posted by Maximian at 9:39 PM on September 2, 2010 [5 favorites]

Response by poster: That must be it! I just watched the video and it seemed very familiar, although I mis-remembered the details. Thank you!
posted by bq at 9:55 PM on September 2, 2010