CFLarsen said:
The square is one of the Zener card figures. If anything, that is one that will not elicit any emotional response
Why would Radin want to use it, then? He said he used calming and activating images. He said nothing about neutral ones.
CFLarsen said:
Of course it would be a smaller difference, if the image dimensions were smaller.
The size I mentioned was simply the size Radin used.
CFLarsen said:
The one where I used a 50K image and a 500K image as an example of files with large size differences. 500 - 50 = 450.
CFLarsen said:
But it wouldn't be for failure, it would be the opposite. If you can give people a clue as to which picture will be displayed, you got your positive result - even if it only means a clue once in a while.
You refuse to acknowledge the obvious. There is no "clue".
Let's extrapolate your own argument about image content affecting compression. We'll forget silly squares but it's arguable that calm images (e.g. a sea-scape, a sunset) would compress slightly smaller than activating images (e.g. a road accident, a dead animal).
This would mean that it could take fractionally longer to retrieve activating images than calm ones.
OK. So what? There is no "clue" given, nor could there be!
In fact, because the delay in this example would likely be larger for activating images then this would actually
decrease the liklihood of a positive result if presentiment is a valid phenomenon because of the increased time between measurement and image display.
I repeat: it's best to remove all doubt but I don't see it as an issue. It's too insignificant.
humber said:
This point is trivial in comparison with the other errors and obfuscation, but the figure I gave came from a 10GB Western Digital Caviar drive - a good performer at the time.
My estimate converts milliseconds to tens, if not hundreds of milliseconds.
I took your own values in my example. I'm not contesting them.
humber said:
The sound will impact upon the subject, and that influence will depend upon it's timing relative to the image. The mind processes closely timed stimuli in a non-linear way. Next error, please.
As I've said, strictly speaking this artefact should be dispensed with. However, let's be perfectly clear: There is no effect here that could be sympathetic to prediction over this number of trials.
humber said:
Those familiar with image processing, will understand the difficulties of post-processing images of different sample rates, skewed sample rates, linear compression, lossless compression and so forth.
If you do not account for all of them, 'artifacts' appear.
With a modern PC there should be no problem. The images could be larger (maybe 1024 on a 24" monitor) and retrieved from RAM. They could be all recompressed or simply compressed if they're from BMPs or non-compressed TIFs) to a specific size or size range, e.g. 200 - 250K, to minimise on any delay differences. Radin performed his early experiments with the equipment available at the time. This does not make his approach sloppy or fraudulent.
humber said:
The Gambler' Fallacy simulations (Dalkvist et al.) contains the following tasty morsel;
"The results revealed a small, but clear, positive difference between activating and calm pictures, which, however, decreased as the length of the sequence increased! (Somewhat surprisingly, Radin rejected the difference as probably being due to sampling errors.)"
Yep, I read that, but notwithstanding that I don't agree with the basis of these simulations and therefore don't trust them (see my earlier posts on the matter) I'm not clear on what is being said here...
humber said:
He knows from his simulations, that the 'gambler's fallacy' is inversely related to the sequence length. As I have mentioned, trials that are numerically 12mins in length, take 30mins. There is a lot of down time. He could run each of the 40 run trials in small chunks, using any excuse to call an interruption.
EDIT: OK - I see what you're saying. Your saying he interrupted the process to re-instigate the GF. In which case, we need to understand - did he? Where do you conclude he did?
---- THIS IS WHAT I WROTE ORIGINALLY, I'LL LEAVE IT IN FOR COMPLETENESS ---
...If the GF is inversely proportional to sequence length then that obviously means that the GF effect decreases as the sequence length increases. If Radin is deliberately prolonging the sequence length as you suggest then the GF effect will decrease.
How is that a bad thing? If the longer sequences suffer less artefacts due to the GF then surely this means that the data is less contaminated.
-----------------
Furthermore, why do you think he called any interruptions? I thought the subject controlled the image display triggers.
humber said:
The tiny image on a close screen seems contrived to create subject discomfort and rest periods. He also reports broken EDA wires to be a problem. He's rather spoiled for choice for means of achieving this end.
I've agreed that the tiny image is not ideal, but I don't see how you jump from stating something could be implemented better to saying that it actually helps Radin achieve more significant results.
Even in theory, all the disk noise, delay, tiny image displays and uncomfortable chairs in the world wouldn't help the subject predict an image which has not yet been chosen and nor would they give the illusion that this was the case.