Editing Reverse speech (section)

==Claims==
{{Listen|filename=Neil Armstrong, small step for man (reversed).ogg|title="small step for [a] man", followed by the same phrase reversed|description=|format=[[Ogg]]}}
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.<ref name="oates">{{Cite web | url=http://www.reversespeech.com/article0903.htm | last=Oates | first=David | accessdate=6 February 2009 | title=Reverse Speech – Voices From The Unconscious | publisher=reversespeech.com | url-status=dead | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090224145854/http://www.reversespeech.com/article0903.htm | archivedate=24 February 2009 | df=dmy-all }}</ref>  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."<ref>[http://www.reversespeech.com/Simple_Examples.htm Reverse Speech Technologies · Examples]</ref>

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.<ref name="newbrook"/>