22. Take your learning a step further by testing your critical thinking skills on this scientific problem solving exercise.

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Since he retired as a college professor 5 years ago, 65-year-old Bentley has suffered numerous health problems, including high blood pressure, chest pains, and muscle tremors. Once very active physically, Bentley has not been able to take his daily 30-minute jog for the past 3 years. For the first time in his life Bentley takes several prescription drugs daily, including one that controls his muscle tremors by blocking the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Bentley's biggest complaint, however, is that he is bored and misses the intellectual stimulation of his former students and colleagues.

Bentley's daughter Mary recently read a magazine article on Alzheimer's disease and is worried that something may be seriously wrong with her father's mind. For a man who once prided himself on his infallible memory and the quickness of his thinking, Bentley's memory now occasionally falters, and his reactions are slower. Fearing that her father may be suffering from Alzheimer's disease, Mary decides to conduct an experiment. Pretending that she is stumped while working on a "brain teaser," she asks her father to help her identify the next letter in the series d f i m r x e. When Bentley becomes flustered and cannot quickly come up with the answer, Mary is crestfallen, certain that her father is in the early stages of a devastating disease.

1. State Mary's argument in your own words.

2. Describe the evidence on which Mary has based her argument.

3. State three reasons why Mary's evidence is not strong enough to support her argument.

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Consider the following hypnosis experiment. "Geraldo the hypnotist" is invited to demonstrate hypnosis to your psychology class. He brings along three volunteers currently enrolled in his hypnosis certification course and claims that hypnosis can trigger specific behaviors, perceptions, and memories. He then hypnotizes the volunteers and begins a demonstration of age regression. The volunteers are brought back to their first day of kindergarten. Remarkably, their behavior and speech seem childlike. After instructing them to forget every thing that happened, Geraldo brings the subjects out of the hypnotic state and invites you and your classmates to question them. To your amazement, the subjects report no memory of the incident. Geraldo argues that his experiment demonstrates that hypnotic age regression actually causes subjects to relive earlier experiences, while the suggestion of posthypnotic amnesia erases memory of the hypnosis from the brain.

1. Geraldo's "experiment" has at least three major flaws. Can you identify them?

2. What explanation does Geraldo offer for the behavior of the subjects in the hypnosis demonstration?

3. Does this explanation make sense based on the evidence?

4. How else might the behavior of the hypnotized subjects be explained?

5. Suggest a more valid test of hypnosis.