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Sgerbic

Joined 27 April 2010
Latest comment: 13 days ago by ජපස in topic Following up re: Higashida
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Latest comment: 12 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I am now proud owner of a TUSC account!— Preceding unsigned comment added by Sgerbic (talk • contribs) 15:38, 9 April 2013 (UTC)Reply


deprod notice

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Edits on Deej

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Latest comment: 1 month ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I'm several months late, but I saw you removed some information from the page because the source "wasn't reliable." Could you please explain why it isn't reliable, and how I might be able to find reliable sources on the matter? Blobs2 (talk) 18:22, 9 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hello there, I'm just back from vacation and although I saw your message I didn't have my laptop with me ... and I was on vacation. I'm going to respond on the Deej talk page which is where these conversations should happen between editors. I'll tag you there. Sgerbic (talk) 20:44, 12 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Nomination of James Underdown for deletion

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Latest comment: 23 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion
 
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article James Underdown is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James Underdown (2nd nomination) until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished.

ARandomName123 (talk)Ping me! 16:22, 2 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Nomination of James Underdown for deletion

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Latest comment: 22 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion
 
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article James Underdown is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James Underdown (2nd nomination) until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished.

Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 22:56, 3 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Following up re: Higashida

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Latest comment: 13 days ago18 comments3 people in discussion

I think your last comment to me at Talk:Ido_Kedar#What's_left? was:

And when you see him typing on the laptop at the beginning of the video, we don't know what he is typing. It could be gibberish. Another tell-tell sign of prompting is that the mother's eyes never leave the keyboard or letterboard. Why? If she is just there for support and comfort, why is she so focused? If she were looking another direction then you would have a better argument for independence.

I wasn't talking about the beginning of the video, which is why I gave the timestamp for the section I was talking about. FactOrOpinion (talk) 11:13, 7 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

That was my last comment, but my first comment to you about Higashida was this ... "Okay I'll bite. The mother is sitting right next to him, why? Look at her hands and body movement, it looks natural but we know that he can be cued from very slight movements. We also can't hear if the mother is cuing with sound. The majority of the clip you are asking about is so tightly framed that you can't tell what the mother is doing. You have heard of Clever Hans right, the micro-movements were so slight that the farmer didn't know he was cueing Hans. Have you seen a two-person mentalist act? Dang there are some that will make you think you are watching pure magic. Just because you don't know how it is being done, does not make it real. This was filmed and released by people who support FC, we can't see what else is happening in this room. All blinded tests with tight controls of FC have shown that it does not work, so the community has stopped testing. To be clear, there is no evidence that Higashida is communicating independently, it looks just like other RPM videos from their community. " Sgerbic (talk) 17:06, 7 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
At 3:00 you hear him saying something. But he is also touching letters. And they have an overlay on the screen of what he is communicating. Why? If he is able to say these words as it appears, then why is he pointing to letters on a paper? Just let him speak and forget about the pointing. What is he actually saying? I don't speak that language, do you? Sgerbic (talk) 17:11, 7 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Yes, I saw your first comment, and I responded there: "He is speaking out loud. How can anyone prompt the words he's saying? The farmer did not get the horse to speak; also, I consider the comparison to a horse to be a BLP violation. Please stop. As for 'it looks just like other RPM videos from their community,' I don't know what the referent of 'their' is / what community you're referring to."
Re: "they have an overlay on the screen of what he is communicating. Why?", it's totally routine to use subtitles for films in other languages (in this case, Japanese). Re: "why is he pointing to letters on a paper?," he explains why in the video: using the written letter board or computer keyboard helps him hold onto the words instead of them floating away. He wrote something similar in his first book:

The alphabet grid ...lets me anchor my words, words that would otherwise flutter off as soon as I tried to speak them. ... the voice I can't control is different. This one blurts out, not because I want it to; it's more like a reflex. A reflex reacting to what? To what I've just seen, in some cases, or to some old memories. When my weird voice gets triggered, it's almost impossible to hold it back. ... The reason we [autistic people with language problems] need so much time [to respond] isn't necessarily because we haven't understood, but because by the time it's our turn to speak, the reply we wanted to make has often upped and vanished from our heads. ... Once our reply has disappeared, we can never get it back again. ... For a long time I've been wondering why us people with autism can't talk properly. I can never say what I really want to. Instead, verbal junk that hasn't got anything to do with anything comes pouring out of my mouth. ... having started with text communication, now I'm able to express myself via the alphabet grid and a computer...

You may doubt that he's the author of any of that. But I see no reason to doubt that he was the one speaking in that video, and therefore that he is capable of writing as well.
Re: "Just let him speak and forget about the pointing," don't you think he's in a better position than we are to know what he needs? Perhaps it's changed since then, but at the time, he was unable to speak coherently without a letterboard or keyboard helping him keep hold of his train of thought. FactOrOpinion (talk) 20:48, 7 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
No I don't think he is in the better position to know what he needs. I think he is being facilitated, and all evidence there is says that FC is pseudoscience. He is being manipulated. What you are repeating is propaganda. Who filmed this video? What is their agenda ... to sell this book, to push this idea he is independent. Why then not do a simple test? Why is mom sitting beside him never taking her eyes off the keyboard? If this worked, it would change lives all over the world, it would be world-changing to people ... if they proved it worked. Yet they refuse to test with even the slightest protocols in place. Remove the mom, or make it impossible for mom to see the keyboard, she could just turn her head and look at the wall, that shouldn't stress him out, then lets see the results. Nothing that comes out of that keyboard is from his mind, so please stop saying "he says", "he wrote" or "he explains" that is all not true.
The question I'm asking you to consider ... If he can speak then why does he need to point at letters to communicate? Put the keyboard/letterboard away and just video him talking. Sgerbic (talk) 21:11, 7 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Given that you don't think he is in the better position to know what he needs, what do you think he needs?
How can an autistic person be visually cued to say "My own words I'm about to forget, I can remember"? This is a serious question. I simply do not see how to cue someone into voicing a sentence that is responsive to a question asked by a third person. Please explain what this process is. Do you think that there's a cue for every phoneme?
Why should they do a simple test of your choosing? That you want something from them does not create any onus on them to provide it. As for "If he can speak then why does he need to point at letters to communicate?," I already answered that. Did you understand that answer?
"If this worked, it would change lives all over the world, it would be world-changing to people" Why? There is no logical requirement that something that works for person A is going to be effective for person B.
"please stop saying 'he says', 'he wrote' or 'he explains' that is all not true." Those words came out of his mouth. Just how would you describe that, other than "he said"? You believe it's not true. You do not know it's not true. FactOrOpinion (talk) 21:47, 7 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
FOO sigh - there are answers out there off Wikipedia that will explain with videos of all these questions you are asking me. This isn't a new subject I just took on a week ago.
You don't know what he said, the transcripts on the screen are there for us to read, but are they repeating what he said or what he typed? They might be different things.
And no one said he doesn't have the ability to speak, he is saying something, but that does not mean he comprehends what he is saying.
I understand your frustration with me, these videos are carefully edited to make it look like he is a living miracle. I'm telling you that there has never been an instance of someone moving from FC/RPM to being an independent communicator. If so it would be major news.
A test of my choosing? A test set up for me? Seriously? ... test for the world of people it would help if there was one person who has moved from FC to independent typing.
If you are going to argue with me about 10-seconds of video that was produced by the FC community and ignore the wealth of information out there that shows this is pseudoscience then I don't think we can have a conversation. Sgerbic (talk) 22:04, 7 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I don't see how something "out there off Wikipedia" can tell me what you are thinking, which is primarily what I asked. And I already knew that this isn't a new subject to you, nor did I suggest otherwise. (And as an side, I really dislike it when someone is unwilling to answer my questions, but wants me to answer theirs, and it's also unhelpful in making progress in the discussion.)
"are they repeating what he said or what he typed? They might be different things." In the section we've been discussing, he wasn't typing, only pointing. In some of it, you can both see what letters he is pointing to and hear the phonemes he is saying. For example, he repeatedly points at j-i-b-u-n-n-o while making corresponding Japanese sounds, and he moves on to pointing at w-a-s-u-r-e-t-e-s-i-m-a while making corresponding sounds. I do not trust automated translators, though one that I tried translated "jibun no wasureteshima" as "my own I forget," which isn't so far from the subtitles. I'll see if I can find an editor who speaks Japanese to help us.
"these videos are carefully edited to make it look like he is a living miracle" I don't think he looks like a miracle. You're the one saying that it would be miraculous. Don't project your interpretations onto me.
"that does not mean he comprehends what he is saying." His response was responsive to the question he was asked. Either he understands what he said in response, or he's being cued to make all of those sounds. You think it's the latter, but you still haven't explained how you believe this occurs.
"I'm telling you that there has never been an instance of someone moving from FC/RPM to being an independent communicator. If so it would be major news." There's no instance you're aware of that meets your standards. Does that mean that it has never occurred? No, of course not; to insist that it does is a variation on the No True Scotsman fallacy.
"A test of my choosing?" Yes. You specified what test you want him to take: "Remove the mom, or make it impossible for mom to see the keyboard." You forgot: "and make sure it's videotaped so I can watch or it's observed by someone I trust." There is zero onus on him to do this just because you want him to. You may believe that "they refuse to test with even the slightest protocols in place," but you have no basis for assuming this. Seriously: what attempt have you made to track down all of the existing video so you can test your conjecture?
"test for the world of people it would help" There is absolutely no requirement that he do that, and once again: there is zero reason to assume that it would help a world of people. That something works for him implies nothing (zero, zip, nada) about whether it will work for anyone else. And it's "10-seconds of video" out of two 1-hour NHK documentaries, and who knows what other video of him exists in Japan, given that he's given a few public talks.
"produced by the FC community" Is it? You certainly haven't shown that. It was produced by Japanese public media, NHK, which produces a lot of documentaries, among other things. Maybe your claim is true, maybe it isn't, but it's striking that you simply assume it despite having no evidence for your assumption. FactOrOpinion (talk) 02:08, 8 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Brief addition:
I went looking for other online video of Higashida, but this short video is all I could really find. (The field is fairly narrow, so I can't rule out that his mother is there and is in cuing distance, but if she's there, she's not right next to him, and it's not clear that there's any ___location where she could be both obscured and also able to see the laptop screen. He certainly doesn't seem to be looking at anything other than the screen, but we can't see what he's typing.) It was an English search, and I don't know if a Japanese search would pull up more. I did find some video of him in the documentary Wretches & Jabberers, which I was able to stream through a free service my public library provides, Kanopy (perhaps your library has this as well?). He's in the middle section of that film, and there's a few seconds that shows him in the background, busy with his laptop while his mother (sitting to his right) is looking off to her right the entire time, not at him or his screen. This film also shows that he's able to fluently read typed text out loud. Katharine Beals notes something similar: "Higashida can fluently read what he has typed—but only after he has typed it out." FactOrOpinion (talk) 21:48, 8 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Well I don't know. You found a video of him typing, we don't know what he is typing or saying. There are dozens of articles and videos answering questions about how cueing is done without touch if you are really interested in knowing how it can appear they are typing independently. His mother and he were in the background of a video and the mother wasn't looking at the screen, and? Why would she care what he was typing at that moment if he wasn't the focus of the video? I don't know what you are trying to argue to me, why are you spending so much time on this, what is you are trying to get me to say? You flex between asking conversational questions and being upset at me. Sgerbic (talk) 22:05, 8 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I'm not upset with you. My apologies that it came across that way. I'm not trying to get you to say anything in particular, only puzzled at whether there's anything at all—other than a testing scenario you set up—that would convince you that he's the author of what he's typing.
I already said "we can't see what he's typing" in the X video, so we agree about that.
Re: "Why would she care what he was typing at that moment if he wasn't the focus of the video?" in Wretches & Jabberers, I neglected to explain the context for this section. Naoki Higashida and his mom were meeting with two autistic Americans, Larry and Tracy, and their American FC facilitators, Pascal and Harvey (who definitely looked to be guiding Larry and Tracy). Naoki, Larry, and Tracy all had keyboards and screens (laptop or some other set-up), and each was typing what they wanted to say to the others, and then a translator would orally translate the written text into the other language so they could understand what each other were saying. The film shows some of the English text typed by Larry and Tracy and some of the Japanese text typed by Naoki. After he's typed, Naoki reads his typed text aloud, but in this section Pascal and Harvey read the English text aloud rather than Larry and Tracy (and Tracy has a harder time vocalizing). I just went back and rewatched the very brief section, and it wasn't that he was in the background, but that it showed Naoki and his mom while Harvey was reading what Tracy had typed, and what Harvey was saying carried more info (for me) than looking at Naoki and his mom, so the latter seemed less focal. Naoki's mother would care what he's typing because it's what he wants to communicate to Larry and Tracy / is what he's going to read aloud / is what the translator is going to translate.
There's also a later section that occurred when all 6 were on a stage, seated behind a long table, giving a presentation to a large roomful of people at an annual autism conference at Tokyo University. Again, Naoki, Larry and Tracy had laptops or keyboards connected to a screen. The written text for their introductions was prepared, with projections on the wall behind them showing both Japanese and English text. The Americans introduced themselves briefly; Higashida gave a longer intro, reading his prepared text. There was also a Q&A, and the three typed their answers; the laptop screens were projected onto the wall behind them (I think only one at a time, and again someone was also translating the Japanese text to oral English or vice versa). After typing his answer, Naoki again read out loud what he had typed. Many Japanese people in the room, presumably they were reading the text projected onto the wall themselves as well as listening to Naoki read it, so they would easily have noticed if the text didn't make sense or if the written text didn't correspond to what he was saying. FactOrOpinion (talk) 23:39, 8 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I showed a friend who knows a lot about this topic your post, this is what they responded ... "From what I understand, it's possible the Naoki has some ability to remember and copy words and letters, but only for short periods of time (e.g., long enough for it to look like he's typing a word independently and without the mother's verbal cues). I don't believe he and his mother have ever participated in controlled testing (where the mother is out of visual and auditory range). I think it's also possible that the mother is cueing him with physical touch (under the table and below the camera angle).
The video was posted 4 years ago. It would be interesting to see a 2025 video of Naoki using FC. Does his mother still have to hover over the letter board, touch him, or provide visual cues? What happens to the sophistication of the typed messages if the mother is out of visual and auditory range? What happens if the mother does not know the content of the questions being asked? Proponents use videos like this to "prove" FC works, but videos like this can be misleading. This isn't a reliably controlled test. I believe the video was produced by a parent who believes in FC and uses it with his own son. (Mitchell also translated the book "The Reason I Jump" into English and, I believe, helped produce the film with the same name)."
Sgerbic (talk) 22:56, 10 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I suggest that your friend watch the middle segment of Wretches & Jabberers that I partially described above, where Larry Bissonnette and Tracy Thresher visit with Naoiki Higashida in a private setting, and all of them present at the Tokyo Univ. autism conference I mentioned above. As for someone other than the autistic person authoring the text via non-FC touch (e.g., on the shoulder or leg) or visual cues, I'm unaware of any research showing that it is possible to author complex text in this way. I'm pretty sure that the Vimeo video was recorded in 2014, and I'd love to be able to see the entire hour-long documentary, along with another a few years later. Yes, it would be interesting to see him now. Lots of things in the world would be interesting; for example, I'm quite interested in seeing the informed consent forms for the FC blind study research. FactOrOpinion (talk) 23:21, 10 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
This is the response ... "I have seen Wretches and Jabberers where all the individuals featured are being subjected to FC. The only legitimate consent forms for FC testing comes from the parents or guardians. You can’t get consent using a discredited form of communication. I’ve never understood why facilitators wouldn’t want to be absolutely sure they aren’t controlling letter selection. Instead of avoiding reliably controlled testing, they should be welcoming it." Sgerbic (talk) 00:16, 11 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
a) Higashida isn't using FC in Wretches and Jabberers.
b) I don't know what experience your friend has writing informed consent forms, but "The only legitimate consent forms for FC testing comes from the parents or guardians" is false. The facilitators would also need to provide consent. But the key thing is that all participants must provide informed consent; the issue of what the researchers told the prospective participants about the study is what I'm interested in, not who signed it. FactOrOpinion (talk) 00:38, 11 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Okay, you must be correct all your arguments have won me over FactorOpinion, you are super knowledgeable on FC and RPM, you win. Discussion over. Sgerbic (talk) 00:55, 11 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
The sarcasm isn't helpful. If you don't want to discuss it, that's absolutely your decision to make, and I won't respond further on your talk page after this. I'm absolutely not "super knowledgeable on FC and RPM," but neither am I totally ignorant (though I was 6 months ago). In my life, I try to distinguish between things I know and those I don't, and between things that are known in the world at large (regardless of whether I know them) and those that aren't. I also know that I sometimes make mistakes, and I try to acknowledge them when I realize I've make one — though there are times when someone else thinks I've made a mistake and I don't acknowledge it, either because t I'm not yet convinced that I was mistaken, or because the other person thinks I've made a mistake, but they're wrong. I'll stop now and wish you well. FactOrOpinion (talk) 01:14, 11 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
a) Higashida isn't using FC in Wretches and Jabberers. How do we know this? jps (talk) 17:07, 12 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Nice job!

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Latest comment: 15 days ago5 comments3 people in discussion

I was forwarded a link to your interview this afternoon, nice work! Chetsford (talk) 05:49, 10 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm so very out of the loop! - Roxy the dog 06:45, 10 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Sorry Roxy. It's three hours long, don't know if you have that much attention span. And @Chetsford you heard I have you figured out how you are getting these articles rewritten ... can I give you a list of stubs to work your magic on and suddenly get them all rewritten? Sgerbic (talk) 00:15, 11 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I'll have to send them to the editing pool here in Langley, LOL Chetsford (talk) 00:30, 11 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I think it would be hard to put up a place as an AfD, people will start figuring your Twain Method. Sgerbic (talk) 00:53, 11 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
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