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IIG Paranormal $50,000 Preliminary Challenge 4:00 pm

Susan Gerbic

Graduate Poster
Susan Gerbic
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Jan 23, 2007
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http://www.facebook.com/events/443989468954275/

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/the-envelope-please

The IIG will undergo a preliminary test by "seeing" into sealed envelopes. The protocol has been designed with months of discussions between the IIG and the claimant. Before the test can begin the claimant must sign off on the protocol and feel capable of success.

The entire test will be video taped and will appear on the IIG website along with a formal report by the lead investigators at a later date. The webstream is designed for people not in the area to watch the test in real time. There will be chat enabled where you can discuss the test and be able to ask questions of the team as well as the claimant.

The IIG will see a demonstration from a man from Laughlin Nevada who claims he can tell us exactly which pictures are in doubly-sealed, opaque envelopes.

He has already chosen the pictures and the IIG will seal them inside the envelopes.

NO ONE in the room will know which pictures are in which envelope as our claimant makes his predictions.

This is clearly a paranormal claim, and if he passes this demonstration, he will qualify for our $50,000 dollar challenge at a later date.
 
Just to add, the time is 4pm (PST) as IIG L.A. is in...L.A.

So that would be a 7pm Sunday June 10 start time on the East Coast of the U.S. and approx 9am Monday June 11 start time Sydney Australia time for example.

The claimant lived in Laughlin, Nevada when negotiations first began, but has since relocated to the Bay Area of Northern California and will be coming from there for the demonstration.

Please create a free Ustream account to chat if don't already have one. Always a fun part of the demos ;)
 
He failed the test.

The test consisted of 4 pictures sealed in envelopes. The applicant then guesses which picture is in which envelope. This was done for 3 trials. The same 4 pictures, selected by the applicant, were used for each trial (Matt Hume, Lincoln Memorial, Ayla, A10 jets). He had to get all 12 pictures right to pass the preliminary test.

The results were:

[table=head]Trial|Envelope|Guess|Actual|Hit
1|1|Hume|Ayla|
1|2|A10s|A10s|Yes
1|3|Lincoln|Lincoln|Yes
1|4|Ayla|Hume|
2|1|Ayla|A10s|
2|2|Hume|Ayla|
2|3|Lincoln|Lincoln|Yes
2|4|A10s|Hume|
3|1|Hume|Hume|Yes
3|2|A10s|Ayla|
3|3|Ayla|A10s|
3|4|Lincoln|Lincoln|Yes[/table]

(For trial 2, the test administrator mixed around envelopes 1 & 2 when he was gathering them. Not that it makes any difference.)

The odds for this test are:

[table=head]Correct|Exactly|At Least|Percent|1 Out Of
0|729|13824|100.0000%|1.00
1|1944|13095|94.7266%|1.06
2|3186|11151|80.6641%|1.24
3|3104|7965|57.6172%|1.74
4|2367|4861|35.1635%|2.84
5|1296|2494|18.0411%|5.54
6|732|1198|8.6661%|11.54
7|288|466|3.3709%|29.67
8|135|178|1.2876%|77.66
9|24|43|0.3111%|321.49
10|18|19|0.1374%|727.58
11|0|1|0.0072%|13824.00
12|1|1|0.0072%|13824.00[/table]

He got 5 of 12 correct. That is better than chance, but not by a lot. The odds to get at least 5 right would be about 18%, which means it would happen in about 1 out of every 5.5 tests. Although it appears that is at least outside 1 standard deviation from the norm, it is not nearly statistically significant.

Someone in the video commented that he got all the Lincoln pictures right. Just for fun, here are the odds of getting all Lincolns right.

[table=head]Correct|Exactly|At Least|Percent|1 Out Of
0|5832|13824|100.0000%|1.00
1|5832|7992|57.8125%|1.73
2|1944|2160|15.6250%|6.40
3|216|216|1.5625%|64.00[/table]

Of course the same could happen for any picture. The chances of getting at least any one picture right in all 3 trials is 819 out of 13824, which is 5.92% or 1 in 16.88.
 
DevilsAdvocate said:
Although it appears that is at least outside 1 standard deviation from the norm, it is not nearly statistically significant.
Click to expand...

To be more explicit, the mean is 3 and one standard deviation is about 1.7. His results differed from the mean by 2. So, yes, his results were outside one standard deviation, but just barely; they were well within two standard deviations, and, as you say, not statistically significant.

I posted my own analysis of the probabilities involved on the IIG West Facebook group yesterday (I tried to include a link, but apparently I can't do that until I've made at least 15 posts on this forum -- but apparently I can at least state the URL: facebook.com/groups/34311672208/permalink/10151037000137209/ ). It's similar to what you posted here, though I listed the probability of getting each number of matches correct out of 12 instead explicitly listing the probability of that number or greater (except for the case of 5 out of 12).

In case anyone's interested in how the probabilities were calculated, I also put up a PDF file with the details of the math involved. (Again, I can't include a link directly, so: jsnuttall.com/misc/June10Challenge.pdf .) Of course, the way I calculated the probabilities isn't the only way to get them; it's also possible, for instance, to brute force it by listing every possibility in a spreadsheet and counting up the ones with a given number of successes.
 
That’s true for a normal distribution. I didn’t give exact numbers because things get wonky with the way the trials were set up because for each trial it is not possible to get exactly 3 correct. For each trial, you can only get 0, 1, 2 or 4 correct. That should result in a lower mean and a wider standard deviation. See the chart above where it is actually more likely to get exactly 2 correct out of 12 rather than 3 (although they are about the same). You can see the similar spread in the “1 Out Of” column. Up to 5 right you have a arrange of 1:1 to 1:5.5. After that, it starts escalating up to 10. Then it takes a big jump from 1:727 to 1:13824.

With the way it is set up: The better you do, the better you do. The worse you do, the worse you do.

Think about it. You take the first picture and match it to an envelope. You have a 25% chance to get it right and a 75% chance to get it wrong. If you get it wrong, that means that you have that one wrong, plus you have the envelope with you picture in it wrong as well—so you have two wrong. The best you can do is 2 right, but the only way you can get that is if you match the picture from the envelope that you just got wrong with the other envelope that is also wrong. Then you have 2 pictures left that match the 2 envelopes left and you have a 50% chance of getting either 2 or 0.

Let’s say we have envelopes:

1=A
2=B
3=C
4=D

I take picture A and match it to envelope 2. I get envelope 2 wrong because it has picture B. Plus, I’ve already used picture A, so now I can’t get envelope 1 right either. By getting 1 wrong I automatically get 2 wrong.

Then I take picture B. I’ve already matched the correct envelope 2, so I’m going to get this one wrong no matter what I do. If I match B to envelope 3, I have 3 wrong and have a 50% chance of getting 1 right by matching D to 4. Same if I match B to envelope 4. If I match B to 1, then I ma left with pictures C and D and envelopes 3 and 4—I either get them in the right order for 2 correct or the wrong order for 0 correct.

Every wrong choice make more wrong choices more probable. On the flip side, if I get 3 right, I automatically get 4 right. If I match 1A, 2B, 3C, then there is nothing left but 4 and D which are a match. This means the psychic doesn’t actually have to be able to see the pictures inside of all 4 envelopes. There can be one envelope that he just can’t read—but as long as he can get a positive read on the other 3 he gets all 4 right.

So he only has to get 3 right out of each trial to pass the test!
 
So he only has to get 3 right out of each trial to pass the test!
Click to expand...

That makes a lot of sense.

The next question that I would like answered because we now have a room full of intelligent people is. How should we have designed the test (following the same format) so that the odds could be easily calculated and understood?

10 folders with one trial? 5 folders with 2 trials? Or something much different?
 
Did he give the standard excuses or (no way) admit he might not have an ability?
 
I look forward to hearing any reaction the claimant might have to this result. I hope he isn't too hard on the testers themselves. It's really frustrating when the claimants blame the test givers for somehow effecting the results just by being there.
 
Susan Gerbic said:
That makes a lot of sense.

The next question that I would like answered because we now have a room full of intelligent people is. How should we have designed the test (following the same format) so that the odds could be easily calculated and understood?

10 folders with one trial? 5 folders with 2 trials? Or something much different?
Click to expand...

I wanted way more images (over 20, but shooting for 40+). All other elements could remain. But he would have no idea which of the 20 or more images were in front of him within the 4 envelopes (and no images would be repeated). As no envelopes would be opened until the demo was over, he could not use info from earlier trials to make guesses for the remaining trials.

This demo had good enough odds for a demo, but allowed some hits more easily than needed, IMO.

Also, the initial report is up.
http://iigwest.org/investigations/robert_mooreland/index.html
 
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