science

Reverse speech

Reverse speech is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Reverse speech rather than just read about it. In short: Reverse speech is a pseudoscientific topic first advocated by David John Oates which gained publicity when it was mentioned on Art Bell's nightly Coast to Coast AM radio talk show. It is based upon the theory that during spoken language production, human speakers subconsciously produce hidden messages that give insights into their innermost thoughts.

Key takeaways

Reverse speech belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Reverse speech to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Reverse speech from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Reverse speech is a pseudoscientific topic first advocated by David John Oates which gained publicity when it was mentioned on Art Bell's nightly Coast to Coast AM radio talk show. It is based upon the theory that during spoken language production, human speakers subconsciously produce hidden messages that give insights into their innermost thoughts. Oates claims that it therefore has applications in psychotherapy, criminology and business negotiation. The theory has been rejected by mainstream science and academia.

Claims

Oates' claim is that, on average, once in every 15–20 seconds of casual conversation a person produces two related sentences—a "forward-spoken" message that is heard consciously, and a "backwards" message unconsciously embedded in the person's speech. These two modes of speech, forward and backward, are supposedly dependent upon each other and form an integral part of human communication. In the dynamics of interpersonal communication, both modes of speech combine to communicate the total psyche of the person, conscious as well as unconscious. Oates claims that backward speech is always honest and reveals the truth about the speaker's intentions and motivations. The most famous recording that allegedly demonstrates this is the speech given by Neil Armstrong at the time of the first human lunar landing on 20 July 1969. If played backwards, the words "small step for man" sound somewhat like "Man will spacewalk." An alternative explanation for this phenomenon is pareidolia, the tendency of the human brain to perceive meaningful patterns in random noise. Pareidolia is even more likely to occur when a person consciously tries to detect a pattern, as is the case for someone listening for intelligible phrases in backwards speech. The power of suggestion is then used to nudge the listener to hear what the presenter wants him to hear. David John Oates, for example, almost always tells the listener in advance what he should expect to hear, thereby planting a suggestion that would make the listener more likely to actually "hear" that phrase. A study has shown that when listening to the same clips without being told in advance what to expect, the results have a higher variation.

Rejection by the scientific community Most academics in the field of linguistics have not paid attention to Oates' work, and it has been called a pseudoscience. For the most part, universities and research institutes have refused to test Oates' theories because of a lack of theoretical basis to make his predictions even worth testing, and the fact that many of his claims are untestable, but one of the few scientific experiments to evaluate Oates' claims did not support his findings. Others have criticized "reverse speech" as lacking a rigorous methodology and not being informed by an understanding of issues in linguistics, and characterized Oates as "more interested in making a profit than educating others," pointing out the large amount of merchandise and services his website sells. Reverse speech has been compared to the controversial field (labelled a pseudoscience by some) of neuro-linguistic programming. Because of the "dogmatic" tone of Oates' material, reverse speech has been compared to "fringe literature." Oates' own claims about the applications of reverse speech have also been challenged. One report has questioned whether reverse speech was ever really used in police work, as Oates claimed. Likewise, his claim that reverse speech has applications in psychology and psychotherapy is not supported by mainstream research in those fields. Oates' work has been described as "dangerous" because of its potential for misuse and the likelihood of leading to false accusations of people in criminal courts, similarly to the controversial practice of facilitated communication.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Reverse speech

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Reverse speech claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Reverse speech before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Reverse speech ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Reverse speech

In research: Reverse speech appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Reverse speech in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Reverse speech is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Human voice, Perception, Pseudolinguistics, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Reverse speech outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Reverse speech in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Reverse speech means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Reverse speech out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Reverse speech in simple terms?

Why does Reverse speech matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Reverse speech?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Reverse speech.