Research results in parapsychology

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Research results in parapsychology are uneven. "Macro" or large scale phenomena, such as spoon bending and events of the type reported from the era of the spiritualist mediums, have – from the point of view of most parapsychologists – not been well-established. Stronger experimental evidence of psi phenomena have been of smaller-scale phenomena, such as telepathy, event guessing (e.g. card-guessing experiments and their offspring), and "micro" psychokinesis experiments such as influencing random-event generators. In these experiments the effects are typically visible only with statistical analyses. In this sense, the observed effects are small compared to the anecdotal macro phenomena. However, these effects are not small when compared to statistically measured events in many fields of science outside of parapsychology, such as sociology, biomedicine, psychology, and biology. ^[1]^[2]^[3]

1 Experimental results
- 1.1 Models and features of parapsychological phenomena
2 References
3 See also
4 External links
- 4.1 Independent research organizations
- 4.2 Other

[edit] Experimental results

It is accepted in the field that at least a small amount of data from properly controlled experiments can be trusted for a small number of psi phenomena.^[4] Some parapsychologists hold that this evidence is not definitive, but suggestive enough to warrant further research. Others believe that a great deal of evidence has been collected, which, if it addressed more conventional phenomena, would be sufficient to provide proof.^[4]

Some experiments have tested the ability to use ESP to get above-average scores when guessing targets such as cards, pictures, or videos. There have also been many ganzfeld experiments and also experiments testing the ability to influence the output of random number generators. Many of these experiments have had positive results, with subjects scoring significantly above chance. This significance, when analyzed using statistics, has often been very high.^[1](Radin 1997:84) Some studies have returned results which are not significantly above chance, which is usually defined as a 95% confidence interval.^[5]^[1](Radin 1997:78-84) However, when results of positive, negative, and inconclusive studies are combined in meta-analyses, they tend to return highly significant results in favor of the existence of psi (or some unknown factor). Although statistical significance is high, the results do not seem impressive to many, because the effect size is often only a few percentage points above chance. For instance, where in a four choice task you would expect a score by chance of 25%, a psychic may score between 33% and 37%.^[1](Radin 1997:83-88)

Controlled parapsychological laberatory research, often using meta-analyses of many experiments performed by different researchers, have returned results such as the following:

Clairvoyance and telepathy experiments: several categories of experiments ranging from ESP card tests, to dream and ganzfeld telepathy studies, to remote viewing and PEAR precognitive remote perception studies, all normalized for chance hit rate of 50%, the categories range from about 54% to 67% hit rate, averaging about 60%.^[1]

Dice tossing: 51.2% hit rate (vs. chance = 50%) over 148 experiments from 1935 to 1987, involving thousands of participants and millions of tosses.^[1]

Random Number Generator (RNG) studies: 51% hit rate (vs. chance = 50%) over 832 studies from 1959 to 1987 (1989 analysis)^[1], although a more recent meta-analysis found that "A Monte Carlo simulation revealed that the small effect size, the relation between sample size and effect size, and the extreme effect size heterogeneity found could in principle be a result of publication bias."^[6]

The PEAR program, started at Princeton University in 1979 and continued until 2007, analyzed millions of random bits. They found a small deviation from the 50% chance expectation, of the order of 0.01%. While this effect is tiny, it is statistically significant: with 7 standard deviations, the probability that the origin of the effect is a statistical oddity (odds against chance) is around 10^-12.^[1]

Distant mental influence on human electrodermal activity: 53% (vs. chance = 50%), over 400 sessions as of 1997.^[1]

Feeling of being stared at: 63% (vs. chance = 50%) over studies from 1913 to 1996.^[1] While in 2004, a computer simulation of the effect of feedback to the subject (ie, saying whether the guess was right or wrong after every trial) coupled with an imbalance in the list of "stare/non-stare" prompts used in the most recent experiments found that some of the results could be due to a simple guessing stategy and response bias. ^[7]

Some experiments have tested the ability to foretell future events, both consciously, and unconsciously by using electrodes to measure galvanic skin responses to future stimuli, and have obtained positive results.^[8]^[9]^[10]

The odds against chance of many of these statistical outcomes are extremely high, often ranging from one in thousands to one in trillions, i.e. statistically large effects. This is so even when common statistical tools are used to rule out "file drawer" cases which might occur when insignificant results are not reported.

Other experiments aimed at detecting psi, especially those performed by experimenters or subjects who disbelieve in psi, have scored significantly below chance. This is called psi-missing, and is considered further evidence for the existence of psi, since any deviation from chance may be evidential.^[11]

Despite the positive results of psi experiments, parapsychology remains highly controversial, partially due to the lack of a theory which explains its results.^[1]^[12]

[edit] Models and features of parapsychological phenomena

There are many theories or models being offered within parapsychology to account for various aspects of psi (psychic) phenomena, though there is no widely accepted comprehensive theory that accounts for all phenomena. Some of the observations and conclusions based on experiments include the following:

Psi ability seems to be latent in all human beings, though there does appear to be a non-uniform distribution of talent. Some individuals can apparently improve their psi abilities through training, though apparently there are different limits or capacities among individuals. The analogy is that most people can learn to ride a bicycle or play an instrument, though few will ever compete in the Tour de France or play in Carnegie Hall.
Psi phenomena do not appear to be impeded by physical or electro-magnetic shielding, such as faraday cages or several hundred feet of water, nor do they appear to diminish in strength or intensity over distances of thousands of kilometers. This would appear to discount an electro-magnetic basis for the phenomena.
Psi phenomena do not appear to be time-bound according to our common notions of causality. Precognition and presentiment experiments suggest abilities to perceive events in the (near) future. The PK experiments of Helmut Schmidt and others suggest abilities to affect events in the past, while some of the PEAR studies suggest ability to affect events in the future.
There are as yet no experiments to test for telepathy which can rule out the more general clairvoyance in accounting for positive results. Similarly there are other psi experiments which allow for more than one type of psi phenomenon to account for positive results.

[edit] References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena by Dean I. Radin Harper Edge, ISBN 0-06-251502-0
^ Radin 1997: 219.
^ http://www.dina.kvl.dk/~abraham/psy1.html Does Psi Exist? Replicable Evidence for an Anomalous Process of Information Transfer By Daryl J. Bem and Charles Honorton
^ ^a ^b http://moebius.psy.ed.ac.uk/FAQ.php3#Nonsense It's All Nonsense, Isn't It? From the website of the Koestler Parapsychology Unit part of the Psychology Department (School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences) at the University of Edinburgh, Retrieved December 31, 2006
^ http://www.surveysystem.com/signif.htm Statistical Significance Definition of statistical significance from Creative Research Systems, Retrieved January 1, 2007
^ Examining Psychokinesis: The Interaction of Human Intention With Random Number Generators - A Meta-Analysis, Bösch H, Steinkamp F, Boller E, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 132, No. 4. (July 2006), pp. 497-523
^ http://www.parapsych.org/papers/07.pdf The Invisible Gaze: Three Attempts to Replicate Sheldrake's Staring Effects, Lobach E, Bierman D, Proceedings of the 47th PA Convention, 2004, pp. 77-90
^ http://www.boundaryinstitute.org/articles/tri2.pdf Evidence for a retrocausal effect in the human nervous system Dean Radin & Edwin May Boundary Institute, Retrieved Dec 15, 2006
^ http://www.boundaryinstitute.org/articles/presentiment99.pdf Evidence for an anomalous anticipatory effect in the autonomic nervous system By Dean I. Radin, Boundary Institute, Retrieved Dec 15, 2006
^ http://www.nidsci.org/pdf/timereversed.pdf Time-reversed human experience: Experimental evidence and implications By Dean Radin, Boundary Institute, Los Altos, California, Retrieved Dec 15, 2006
^ Radin 1997:108-109
^ Entangled Minds by Dean Radin, Simon & Schuster, Paraview Pocket Books , 2006