Final answer:
Facilitated communication experiments involved separate information presentation to determine the communication's origin, revealing the facilitator as the source. These experiments emphasized the importance of transparency, replicability, and applicability to broader concepts like natural selection.
Step-by-step explanation:
Facilitated communication (FC) is a method that was once popularized as a means to enable communication by individuals with severe disabilities, such as autism. The technique involves a facilitator who helps the individual with disabilities by supporting their hand or arm while they use a keyboard or communication board.
The integrity and validity of FC have been tested through controlled experiments to determine if the communications originate from the disabled individual or are inadvertently guided by the facilitator.
In experiments designed to test facilitated communication, a key method involved presenting different pieces of information to the facilitator and the nonverbal individual separately.
If the communicator, supposedly the nonverbal individual, could only provide correct answers when the facilitator had access to the same information, it would suggest that the facilitator was the source of the communication.
This was often assessed by having the facilitator and the individual look at different images or words and then asking the facilitated individual to describe or identify what was being viewed.
The results of these studies overwhelmingly indicated that the facilitator was, in most cases, the source of the responses, hence, discrediting the authenticity of facilitated communication. Research methods, experiment process, and the importance of natural selection are relevant here as well.
Such experiments serve as a direct observation of outcomes, providing a transparent and replicable method to communicate the results to the scientific community and the general public.
It's crucial for any claimed method of communication to undergo rigorous testing to ensure that it is reliable, especially before it is used as a tool for developing our understanding of human capacities, including those affected by natural selection.