Mistaken first impressions: a response.
In this journal, Cummins et al reported an experiment that examined clinicians' predictions of causes of death from subjects' pre-morbid photographs. They found that clinicians performed at chance. The validity of two of their other conclusions are challenged. First, that clinicians routinely form impressions of how a person will die from their appearance. Second, that certain health professionals use common judgements to form these impressions. These claims are found to be based upon non-falsifiable hypothesis and inappropriate statistics; hence, an experiment employing pictures of feet (or any arbitrary personal detail) would have led the authors to the same conclusions.
Lewis
M B
MB
School of Psychology, Cardiff University, UK.
Ellis
H D
HD
D002423:Cause of Death; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D005145:Face; D005544:Forecasting / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D010781:Photography