Q14

[magnusgan]

Can someone check my understanding please... I picked wrong answer (C) and am trying to figure it out.

I understood the assertion as "ghost movies are terrifying for reasons other than mistaking something which is not real as real." or simply put... Frijda's law of apparent reality is wrong.

Because the question asks for "false EXCEPT," the right answer would have to be something which agrees with the author or goes against Frijda's law.

Frijda's law: emotional response only to real stimuli; intensity scales with belief in (real) stimuli; vivid imagination has properties of reality

(A) agrees with Frijda's law - out
(C) agrees with Frijda's law - out
(D) if ghost movies became scary because of viewers' belief that ghosts are real, then we would be drawn into Frijda's law - out
(E) this also agrees with Frijda's law: ghost movies would probably not elicit any response for viewers who do not perceive ghosts as real (equated real with do not believe in ghosts) while snake movies would be scary for people who are afraid of them.

(B) agrees with the author in that imaginary phenomena can be as scary as real phenomena. This disagrees with Frijda's laws in that imaginary phenomena should not be able to elicit any response (while answer choice B states they can). Since this is the only answer choice in disagreement with Frijda's laws, this is the right choice.

[ohthatpatrick]

Nice work! I think you nailed it.

The question stem itself is a nightmare worthy of terror: "All of these are false EXCEPT"?

Yikes. Technically, we'd decode the correct answer as something that Could Be True.

But I think you were very incisive to think of this more in terms of points of view.

When the author brings up movies about ghosts he does so for the sake of saying, "See? Frijda is wrong."

So you interpreted the question as
- 4 of these things will sound like something Frijda would say
(and the author would respond, "FALSE!")
and
- 1 of these things will NOT sound like something Frijda would say

You explained it very well in those terms.

Keep up the good work.

[uhdang]

I see that magnusgan has essentially distinguished four answer choices in agreement with each other and one that's left out. My approach was a bit different, and if anybody could share some thoughts on it, I would appreciate it.

First of all, I was a bit confused to see Must be False Except question because it's rare (for me). Since it is asking for "could be true" answer, I tried to categorize, or ended up categorizing, incorrect answer choices as "irrelevant / out of scope" and "must be false."

Implication of the "ghost" example is that Frijda's claim of "emotions are elicited ONLY by events appraised as real" is false because people know that ghosts in the movie aren't real and yet they feel fear, even if they do not believe in the ghost.

Now, let's go to the answer choices.

A) I thought that this was not covered by the author, so it's out of scope, because the author considers the belief in the ghost as an irrelevant factor, or something we can disregard ("even those who firmly reject the possibility of ghosts" 19-20)

B) This is Could Be True answer. Even if it is not the reality, people do feel fear out of the ghost in the movie. The author is asserting to this claim to challenge F's argument. It is wrong to say this is false. Correct

C) This is Must be false because the author states the opposite. People do feel fear even if they know they (snakes and ghosts from the movie) are not real. (second paragraph)

D) Permanently altering the sense of reality is not discussed. Out of scope. Irrelevant.

E) There was no discussion about differentiating "fear" from snake and ghosts. Out of scope. Irrelevant.

[tommywallach]

I think that's a great method there, Uhdang! And yes, it is indeed a rare question type.

-t