Robin Wooffitt
Department of Sociology
University of York
Heslington,
York, YO10 5DD
UK
Conversation analysis (CA) is a formal, qualitative method for the analysis of naturally-occurring interaction. It has been applied to the investigation of the discourse of anomalous experiences, and in the analysis of experimenter-subject interaction in parapsychology experiments. This paper contributes to this latter line of research. A key feature of the CA method is to examine how a turn's design exhibits its producer's tacit understanding of the on-going interaction. This methodological step is illustrated by analysis of data from ganzfeld experiments conducted at the Koestler Parapsychology Unit at the University of Edinburgh. The analysis focuses on two different ways in which experimenters receipt subject communication in the mentation review phase of the experimental procedure. In the review, experimenters go over their record of the subject's prior mentation imagery. After introducing each instance of mentation imagery, the experimenters leave a short gaps before proceeding to introduce the next item in the review. This slot provides an opportunity for the subject to correct the experimenter's record of the mentation, if necessary, or to add further information about their imagery. Routinely, subjects pass on this opportunity to expand upon their prior mentation imagery. However, when they do provide further information about their imagery, this expansion turn is usually receipted by "okay" from the experimenter, who then moves on to the next mentation imagery. In some cases, though, expansion turns are receipted by "mm hm" or its variants. In such cases, it is observable that the subject provides further talk about the relevant imagery. However, in various ways, in this further talk the subject exhibits a much more circumspect or cautious stance toward their imagery; for example, there are expressions of doubt about the status of the imagery, or accounts which attribute the imagery to mundane aspects of the environment. It is argued that these doubt marked or circumspect expansion sequences are interactionally generated in that they emerge from the subject's interpretation of the significance of the experimenter's "mm hm" receipt of their prior talk. The paper concludes by offering some speculative observations on the possible consequences of the different interpretations subjects may draw from these two forms of experimenter receipt. abstract.