Parapsychology Practical ClassParapsychology Practical Class

Aims

1. To learn a little about testing claims of psychic ability

2. To learn how to test against chance (µ)

Objectives

You will conduct two runs of the TELEPATHY programme. Wpsyc/practicals/Jonathan &

Jasper 1st yr Pracs/Parapsyc

1. Test your (or your partner’s) score against chance using z score.

2. Test your table’s scores against chance using one-sample t before a break

3. Repeat after a break – INVESTIGATE THE EFFECTS OF HOLDING HANDS

4. Run within-subjects t to see whether the break affected your table’s

performance (break = IV)

What Is Parapsychology?What Is Parapsychology?

Parapsychology – the scientific study of paranormal phenomena (aka psychical research)

Psi – the object of study:

PSI

Telepathy

Clairvoyance

Precognition Psychokinesis (PK)

ESP

GESP

Why Investigate psi?Why Investigate psi?

Anecdotal evidence suggests that humans can obtain information outside the normal five senses and outside accepted laws of physics (cf. The Aberfan disaster).

Over the last 60 years experimental evidence has been amassed that has lead some researchers to accept that some form of ‘anomolous cognition’ does exist (Bem & Honorton, 1994).

“[Parapsychology] represents an excellent opportunity to evaluate and develop the methods used by science to decide upon the reality of reported phenomena”, (Wiseman, 1996).

“…If we could free the mind from the absolute restriction of the mechanism of the senses, the effect upon the science of the mind – psychology – and upon man’s whole view of himself would be almost too great to conjecture.” (Rhine, 1938).

Anecdotal Evidence: The Aberfan DisasterAnecdotal Evidence: The Aberfan Disaster

On 21 October, 1966, the coal tip on the mountain overlooking the welsh mining town of Aberfan slid down the mountainside burying a school killing 128 children and 16 adults.

Several premonitions of this event were recorded in front of witnesses, some up to fourteen days before the event.

Joseph Rhine’s Experimental Work

J.B. Rhine experimentally investigated claims of ESP

Famous for the Pearce-Pratt series of experiments (see next slide)

Pearce claimed to have ESP abilities Clairvoyance

Experimental Evidence: Forced ChoiceExperimental Evidence: Forced Choice

• The Pearce-Pratt distance-series ESP tests:74 runs through a deck of Zener cards produced a hit rate of 7.1 out of 25 when chance would give 5/25 (MCE- Mean Chance Expectation). The probability of this happening was p<10-22

ZENER CARDS (ESP CARDS) (25 cards/deck)

Experimental Evidence: Forced ChoiceExperimental Evidence: Forced Choice

Helmut Schmidt’s random event generator (REG):

Parapsychology experiments have been criticised for the use of non-random processes. Schmidt therefore created a machine that chose one of four outcomes on the basis of random electron emission from a radioactive particle.

In a forced choice experiment subjects had to precognise which of four lights would activate (p<10-10) or clairvoyantly report a pre-determined order of lights (p<0.0001).

Free response dream experiments:

At the Maimonides lab (NY) researchers studied the effects of telepathy through dream imagery during REM sleep.

The sender would focus on a picture during the night (such as the ‘the descent from the cross’ – right). Subjects’ dreams would be noted after each period of REM and in the morning. Judges would then try to match their descriptions against the pictures.

Experimental Evidence: Free Response

Experimental Evidence: Free ResponseExperimental Evidence: Free Response

Remote viewing (RV) – statistically significant results have been found for the reporting of unknown locations (Targ & Puthoff, 1977).

Ganzfeld experiments – Honorton (1978) reported that over 50% of Ganzfeld experiments reported significant results.

Conclusion? Though all parapsychology experiments are open to criticism (at the very least on the level of fraud), the evidence is suggestive that there may be something of interest in the results. (The American government certainly thought so as it sponsored RV research for several years).

Now It Is Your Chance To Test psiNow It Is Your Chance To Test psi

The experiments chosen for today’s practical are forced-choice tests where the stimuli are sampled randomly with replacement.

Choose TELEPATHY from your local directory

You should be aiming to get significantly higher than 10/40 (25 % as there are four options that you can choose from in the study).

Now It Is Your Chance To Test psiNow It Is Your Chance To Test psi

Record your Ps’ age & gender to include in your Participants section

What To Put In Your ReportWhat To Put In Your Report

The z-score and one-sampe t test parts have no independent nor dependent variable – you’re comparing performance again chance. That’s all.

But the within-subject t test assess the effects of holding hands on telepathic performance – this has possible IVs and DVs.

10/40 = chance >> 10 correct psychic powers! << 10 correct psychic powers + self deprecation?SO, TWO-Tailed hypothesis

What To Put In Your ReportWhat To Put In Your Report

What To Put In Your ReportWhat To Put In Your Report

Just you Your table Your table holding hands

z score One-sample t Within-participant t

The chance level of performance was 10/40 correct. The individual’s mean percentage accuracy, over the 40 trials, was 27%, which did not differ from the chance, z = .10; p > .460

The tables’ mean percentage accuracy was 23%. Using a one-sample t test table data were found not to differ significantly from chance, t(9) = 1.01; p > .26

As for Your table

Note: compare your tables’ performance with/wihtout hand holding using a within-subject t test.

See Handbook – Section 2, p. 5

What To Put In Your ReportWhat To Put In Your Report

AppendicesEssential2. Hand calculation of z. Follow instructions in handbook. Use

neatest handwriting3. SPSS Printout