Psi in the Ganzfeld

[Ersby]

I don't know what you're doing.

Do you think that by posting parts of papers that talk about significant correlations between sender/receiver characters, this is somehow an indication of psi? That's insane. For a start, the paper you posted by Beirman doesn't support the findings of the work done by Parker. Trust me, for every correlation you can find a paper for, I can find one that found the opposite. I'm not going to, because that would be boring.

I can cut to the chase: the strongest correlation for successful results seems to be for receivers who are creative/artistic. The second strongest appears to be receivers who are meditators.

That's it. The rest is noise. And I'm not being a hard-nosed skeptic about this. That's just what the results are.

 

[Limbo]

I can cut to the chase: the strongest correlation for successful results seems to be for receivers who are creative/artistic. The second strongest appears to be receivers who are meditators.

What's your explanation for these correlations?

 

[fls]

What I'm trying to say is this. If the data collected in the ganzfeld experiments is meaningless, then how is it that we find correlates in the data?

Because you can always find some correlates in the data when you give yourself lots of chances to find them.

I mean, there should be no correlation whatsoever between comfort and success...anxiety and failure...if the data is essentially meaningless. Right? We shouldn't be able to predict success and failure to any degree...right?

Putting aside that these factors may influence our ability to profit from sensory leakage, of course you should be able to 'predict' success and failure. If you postulate and test secondary associations on a regular basis, some are bound to acheive 'statistical significance'. Our statistical significance tests are just an arbitrary cut-off after all. If you give yourself 10 tries to find something that only happens due to chance one-tenth of the time, you have given yourself a 65% chance that you will be able to claim a successful prediction in the absence of any real ability to predict.

Or, "what Ersby said".

Linda

 

[Limbo]

Because you can always find some correlates in the data when you give yourself lots of chances to find them.

Are you suggesting that the correlations between success rate and creative/artistic/meditation is in actuality very weak? You're painting a picture of parapsychologists desperately sifting through data and then dishonestly buffing weak correlations.

If we could go through EVERY parapsychology experiment ever published and focus on the success rate of meditators and artists and "sheep", what do you think we would find? Would success rate overall be higher in that group? How much higher?

Any predictions? Anyone?

If we could likewise focus in on the overall success rate of "goats" would it be lower in that group? How much lower? Could it be so low as to be below chance expectation?

Any predictions? Anyone?

 

[fls]

Are you suggesting that the correlations between success rate and creative/artistic/meditation is in actuality very weak? You're painting a picture of parapsychologists desperately sifting through data and then dishonestly buffing weak correlations.

I am. And I don't think it's done desperately or dishonestly, nor is it confined to parapsychology. It's what people do when they sincerely think/hope that what they are doing is worthwhile. I think the blog entry I linked to earlier captures this attitude quite well.

If we could go through EVERY parapsychology experiment ever published and focus on the success rate of meditators and artists and "sheep", what do you think we would find? Would success rate overall be higher in that group? How much higher? Any predictions?

If we could likewise focus in on the overall success rate of "goats" would it be lower in that group? How much lower? Could it be so low as to be below chance expectation? Any predictions?

If you are talking about published experiments, I would expect the success rates to be higher in the sheep/meditators/artists group and for it to be lower in the goats group. "How much" serves as a measure of the extent to which biases are present (starting with publication bias).

Linda

 

[Limbo]

If you are talking about published experiments, I would expect the success rates to be higher in the sheep/meditators/artists group and for it to be lower in the goats group. "How much" serves as a measure of the extent to which biases are present (starting with publication bias).

Lets say all published experiments throughout the history of parapsychology. Lets say overall the sheep/meditators/artists group has a 65% hit rate. The goats have a below chance 20% hit rate.

You would regard this merely as an indication that biases are present, and therefore dismiss it?

 

[Limbo]

Finding Psi in the Paranormal: Psychometric Measures Used in Research on Paranormal Beliefs/Experiences and in Research on Psi-Ability

[...]

"Creativity seems to be a promising correlate of experimental success in the ganzfeld. Schlitz and Honorton (1992) reported an overall significant hit rate in a ganzfeld study using students from a school for the performing arts. The music students produced the highest success rate (75%, MCE being 25%)."

[...]

Meta-analyses of 10 experiments on perceptual defensiveness and ESP: ESP scoring patterns and experimenter and decline effects.

"Experiments exploring the relationship between perceptual defensiveness and ESP have yielded remarkably consistent results. All five published experiments completed by Johnson and associates by 1976 yielded significant results, with correlations between perceptual defensiveness and ESP ranging from .79 in the first experiment (Carpenter, 1965) to .26 in the fifth (Johnson & Lubke, 1977). Low-defensive subjects obtained higher scores on standard ESP tests than high-defensive subjects, who tended to obtain scores below mean chance expectation."

[...]

Linda...you are essentially saying results like these are utterly meaningless, for one reason or another. Correct? I just want to be clear on where you stand.

 

[Limbo]

Experimental Evidence Suggestive of Anomalous Consciousness Interactions

6 Relating ESP to personality traits:

"Two meta-analyses Parapsychological researchers have long been interested in exploring if there are any factors which might relate to why some people report having more psi experiences in their everyday life than do others. Similarly, while most experimental work is done with volunteer subjects who have not been chosen on the basis of their supposed psi ability, it has been observed that some people appear to do better in experimental psi tests than others.

One approach to examining possible reasons for these observed differences has involved exploring the relationship between various personality factors and psi ability. Two meta-analyses of studies which have looked for correlations between performance on a psi task and different personality traits will be discussed here. One of these involved studies which looked for a relationship between a person’s opinion of psi and their own psi abilities with their psi test performance.

Research examining what has come to be known as the sheep/goat effect, supported the hypothesis that in experimental psi tests those with positive attitudes (“sheep”) tend to score above chance, and those with negative attitudes (“goats”) below chance. Lawrence [30] conducted a meta-analysis of the 73 published studies examining the sheep/goat effect. These studies were conducted by 37 principal investigators, and involved over 4,500 subjects who completed over 685,000 trials. The overall effect size per trial is small (r =0.029), but highly significant over these studies which involved a large number of procedural manipulations and potential modifying variables. The combined Stouffer z = 8.17, p = 1.33 ´ 10-16.

Using seven different measure of study quality, Lawrence found that effect size did not covary with study quality. A file-drawer estimate (Rosenthal’s fail-safe N”) revealed that 1726 unreported studies with null results (i.e., 23 unreported studies for each of the 73 reported ones) would be required to reduce the significance of the database to chance expectancy. This database has used a wide range of different sheep/goat scales, ranging from single questions to more lengthy questionnaires. The means of determining belief have also varied, with most focusing upon previous personal psi experiences, self-evaluation of personal psi ability, opinions regarding one’s ability to display psi ability in the specific testing situation and/or one’s general attitudes towards such phenomena.

Lawrence found there was no overall relationship between effect size and the type of measure used, from which he concluded that the sheep/goat effect was quite robust regardless of how it was measured."

 

[fls]

Finding Psi in the Paranormal: Psychometric Measures Used in Research on Paranormal Beliefs/Experiences and in Research on Psi-Ability

[...]

"Creativity seems to be a promising correlate of experimental success in the ganzfeld. Schlitz and Honorton (1992) reported an overall significant hit rate in a ganzfeld study using students from a school for the performing arts. The music students produced the highest success rate (75%, MCE being 25%)."

[...]

Meta-analyses of 10 experiments on perceptual defensiveness and ESP: ESP scoring patterns and experimenter and decline effects.

"Experiments exploring the relationship between perceptual defensiveness and ESP have yielded remarkably consistent results. All five published experiments completed by Johnson and associates by 1976 yielded significant results, with correlations between perceptual defensiveness and ESP ranging from .79 in the first experiment (Carpenter, 1965) to .26 in the fifth (Johnson & Lubke, 1977). Low-defensive subjects obtained higher scores on standard ESP tests than high-defensive subjects, who tended to obtain scores below mean chance expectation."

[...]

Linda...you are essentially saying results like these are utterly meaningless, for one reason or another. Correct? I just want to be clear on where you stand.

I'm saying that in the presence of bias, it is difficult to draw reliable and valid conclusions about what you'd expect to see in the absence of bias. The results are meaningless in the sense that they don't really change the probability that the idea (psi) is more or less likely to be real.

Linda

 

[Limbo]

I'm saying that in the presence of bias, it is difficult to draw reliable and valid conclusions about what you'd expect to see in the absence of bias.

Starting with publication bias and then on down the list. Ending with what, accusations of deliberate fraud?

The results are meaningless in the sense that they don't really change the probability that the idea (psi) is more or less likely to be real.

I don't agree...obviously. I think the presence of consistent effects across experiments and over the decades speaks volumes.

 

[fls]

Experimental Evidence Suggestive of Anomalous Consciousness Interactions

6 Relating ESP to personality traits:

"Two meta-analyses Parapsychological researchers have long been interested in exploring if there are any factors which might relate to why some people report having more psi experiences in their everyday life than do others. Similarly, while most experimental work is done with volunteer subjects who have not been chosen on the basis of their supposed psi ability, it has been observed that some people appear to do better in experimental psi tests than others.

One approach to examining possible reasons for these observed differences has involved exploring the relationship between various personality factors and psi ability. Two meta-analyses of studies which have looked for correlations between performance on a psi task and different personality traits will be discussed here. One of these involved studies which looked for a relationship between a person’s opinion of psi and their own psi abilities with their psi test performance.

Research examining what has come to be known as the sheep/goat effect, supported the hypothesis that in experimental psi tests those with positive attitudes (“sheep”) tend to score above chance, and those with negative attitudes (“goats”) below chance. Lawrence [30] conducted a meta-analysis of the 73 published studies examining the sheep/goat effect. These studies were conducted by 37 principal investigators, and involved over 4,500 subjects who completed over 685,000 trials. The overall effect size per trial is small (r =0.029), but highly significant over these studies which involved a large number of procedural manipulations and potential modifying variables. The combined Stouffer z = 8.17, p = 1.33 ´ 10-16.

Using seven different measure of study quality, Lawrence found that effect size did not covary with study quality. A file-drawer estimate (Rosenthal’s fail-safe N”) revealed that 1726 unreported studies with null results (i.e., 23 unreported studies for each of the 73 reported ones) would be required to reduce the significance of the database to chance expectancy. This database has used a wide range of different sheep/goat scales, ranging from single questions to more lengthy questionnaires. The means of determining belief have also varied, with most focusing upon previous personal psi experiences, self-evaluation of personal psi ability, opinions regarding one’s ability to display psi ability in the specific testing situation and/or one’s general attitudes towards such phenomena.

Lawrence found there was no overall relationship between effect size and the type of measure used, from which he concluded that the sheep/goat effect was quite robust regardless of how it was measured."

A finding which is easily consistent with a publication and reporting bias (Rosenthal's fail safe N is not appropriate when you don't expect the average of the missing studies to be zero, as would be the case here). Secondary analyses that are uninteresting (i.e. null or negative), tend not to be mentioned.

Linda

 

[fls]

Starting with publication bias and then on down the list. Ending with what, accusations of deliberate fraud?

What are you saying? That parapsychology should not be expected to follow good research practices? I'm not talking about anything that parapsychologists don't readily admit to.

I don't agree...obviously. I think the presence of consistent effects across experiments and over the decades speaks volumes.

I realize that you don't agree. But I am not interested in ignoring our hard-won discoveries as to what makes a conclusion more or less likely to be true, simply to satisfy my wishful thinking.

Linda

 

[Limbo]

What are you saying? That parapsychology should not be expected to follow good research practices?

No, I'm saying that one can run through the laundry list of biases, claiming that some combination of bias, error, and/or fraud accounts for everything. Every positive result, every effect, every correlation, from every researcher throughout the history of parapsychology. This is an essentially unfalsifiable position, right?

I mean, unless such a person has a strong psychic experience firsthand...that might do it.

 

[fls]

No, I'm saying that one can run through the laundry list of biases, claiming that some combination of bias, error, and/or fraud accounts for everything. Every positive result, every effect, every correlation, from every researcher throughout the history of parapsychology. This is an essentially unfalsifiable position, right?

It's not unfalsifiable in that one can form testable hypotheses based on the idea. For example, publication bias has been studied extensively including ways to measure and correct for it. Simulations can help elucidate the potential size and nature of particular biases (I provided several examples in the thread on presentiment). Hyman ran a similation using of few of the biases identified in the ganzfeld data base and found that they effectively increased the possibility of a statistically significant result 6-fold.

It is possibly a defensible position to claim that since bias is ubiquitous, that it is reasonable to assume it exists even if not overtly demonstrable unless proven otherwise. However, I'm trying to be more reasonable/helpful, so I'm considering just that which most would agree to be present or likely, with effect sizes that are well within the range of what has already been demonstrated.

I mean, unless such a person has a strong psychic experience firsthand...that might do it.

I realize that is a common assumption - that these experiences somehow speak for themselves. I don't think that's it, though, as I have had strong psychic experiences firsthand.

Linda

 

[Limbo]

I don't think that's it, though, as I have had strong psychic experiences firsthand.

Would you care to describe your most interesting one?

 

[fls]

Would you care to describe your most interesting one?

One that is related to what we've been talking about is that I see things before they happen. I don't know how to pick out one that is most interesting - unlikely? specific? dramatic? - running into someone I know from a faraway place? the time on a race clock? a car accident?

Linda

 

[Limbo]

One that is related to what we've been talking about is that I see things before they happen. I don't know how to pick out one that is most interesting - unlikely? specific? dramatic? - running into someone I know from a faraway place? the time on a race clock? a car accident?

Linda

Precognition: "Also called premonition. Obtaining information about future events, where the information could not be inferred through normal means. Many people report dreams that appear to be precognitive."

Is this what you mean?

Have you somehow obtained information about a future event that could not have been inferred through normal means?

 

[fls]

Precognition: "Also called premonition. Obtaining information about future events, where the information could not be inferred through normal means. Many people report dreams that appear to be precognitive."

Is this what you mean?

Have you somehow obtained information about a future event that could not have been inferred through normal means?

That's the rub, isn't it? How do you decide something couldn't have been inferred through normal means? Certainly some of the stuff I've seen is as remote from normal as what gets described by others as evidence of precognition.

If I see a time on a race clock that later matches what I see at the end of a race, is that precognition?

Linda

 

[Dancing David]

Yeah. Ersby was mostly talking about the bottom line of the meta-analyses. I'm talking about things like this:

A psychological analysis of ganzfeld protocols

[...]

"It was found that, in general, participants tended to hit when their scores suggested a very positive adjustment and when imagery was allowed to develop in a free and personally involving way. Participants who missed showed more signs of anxiety and obsessive attempts to control the experience."

[...]

How does this address the appaling statistics and errant assumptions?

 

[Dancing David]

What I'm trying to say is this. If the data collected in the ganzfeld experiments is meaningless, then how is it that we find correlates in the data?

I mean, there should be no correlation whatsoever between comfort and success...anxiety and failure...if the data is essentially meaningless. Right? We shouldn't be able to predict success and failure to any degree...right?

"To guard against overanalysis, the author defined a composite cluster a priori made up of several scales that were most strongly expected to predict scoring, and this was tested against rank scores in a relatively large pilot subset. This cluster did predict performance significantly."

I mean, if the data is meaningless then how is it that performance can be predicted to any degree whatsoever?

A REVIEW OF THE GANZFELD WORK AT GOTHENBURG UNIVERSITY BY ADRIAN PARKER

ABSTRACT

"The results of five standard ganzfeld studies and one multiple target ganzfeld (the serial ganzfeld) study are reported. The standard ganzfeld studies form a highly significant and consistent data base with an overall hit-rate of 36% (40% in the case of auditory monitored studies) and a mean effect size of .25 (.34 in the case of the monitored studies). This database has been used to study psychological correlates of psi in terms of psychometric tests. The most successful of these tests are the Australian Sheep Goat Scale, the Magical Ideation Scale, and ”Feeling” scores on the Myers-Briggs Inventory. Other scales that were used as predictors of psi-scores with varying degrees of success included the Transliminality Scale, the Defence Mechanism Test, and the Tellegen Absorption Scale. A further investigation suggests on the basis of confidence ratings made before and after ganzfeld relaxation, that there may be some awareness of the psi-content of the imagery generated during the ganzfeld state. The report includes a review of current work in developing the ganzfeld into a portable digital technique for process-orientated research."

Oh my, there is the errant assumption right there:


"The standard ganzfeld studies form a highly significant and consistent data base with an overall hit-rate of 36% (40% in the case of auditory monitored studies) and a mean effect size of .25 (.34 in the case of the monitored studies). "

there is an errant assumption that the hit rate will be 25%, which is wrong, certain words will always be rated at a higher 'hit' rate with certain pictures than others. You can not assume that any given string by a participant will give a hit for a picture will be 25%. certain words will have higher match rates to receiver strings than others. it is even worse in the self rating Ganzfeld.

So how is one to know that this 36% hit rate means anything? What is the deviation score for hits on the words in the string of words?