Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site oakhill.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!ut-sally!oakhill!davet From: davet@oakhill.UUCP (Dave Trissel) Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: Re: Negative deviations in psi experiments. Message-ID: <577@oakhill.UUCP> Date: Fri, 1-Nov-85 21:33:42 EST Article-I.D.: oakhill.577 Posted: Fri Nov 1 21:33:42 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 5-Nov-85 04:53:18 EST References: <1116@decwrl.UUCP> Reply-To: davet@oakhill.UUCP (Dave Trissel) Organization: Motorola Inc. Austin, Tx Lines: 49 In article <1116@decwrl.UUCP> cooper@pbsvax.DEC (Topher Cooper HLO2-3/M08 DTN225-5819) writes: > >What is the source of psi-missing (which is the term used to describe the >situation when a subject guesses significantly fewer targets than can be >ascribed to chance)? ...... > >When an experiment is performed and there are two conditions used (i.e., test >and control conditions), and the subjects are aware of the distinction between >the conditions (e.g., one condition is "lights are on" and the other is "lights >are out" in the room the subject is in), then it is frequently found that one >condition will produce psi-hitting and the other will produce psi-missing. >There is some indication that the psi-hitting generally occurs in the condition >that the particular subject prefers. This is one of several related effects >called in parapsychology, the "Differential effect." I had this effect occur with me when I was tested on a random event generator (REG) several years ago. The REG generated 10,000 events a second. (It consisted of a noise diode running a decade counter which generated the equivalent roll of a ten-sided die.) The PSI task was to start at zero and run a test where I was to "wish" for high values on the numbers. Ten trials for all ten digits. During the test I found myself uneasy when I was "wishing" for one of the odd numbers as the target. For some reason, I have always felt a slight bias toward even numbers over odd. Sure enough, it turned out that the digits showing up in the final results for the counters when examined had a much higher ratio of the even digits to odd (odds of almost 400 to 1 against.) However, , the experiment's predetermined analysis was not to take such data into account (only the highest counter was determined for each of the ten trials) and this therefore was never even mentioned in the published results. (In other words, no "looking for results in the data" allowed.) A couple more runs still showed I could produce the bias. The end result was odds of about 12 to 1 overall. I found it amusing that the electrons tended to "choose" my favorite base ten numbers for a total count while pouring out of the noise diode. None of the thousands of "stand alone" tests or those of other subjects showed the same anamoly. Several months later I tried again and was still causing the bias (the odds was somewhere around 5 to 1 for that series.) -- Dave Trissel {ihnp4,seismo}!ut-sally!oakhill!davet "Gee - it couldn't be true so I guess it didn't happen."