Psi in the Ganzfeld

[Dancing David]

So, you're saying the bottom line is meaningless coincidence. I say there seems to be undeniable patterns in the data. Patterns that shouldn't be there if the data is meaningless.

Anomalous information access in the Ganzfeld: Utrecht - Novice series I and II
by Dick J. Bierman, Douwe J. Bosga, Hans Gerding & Rens Wezelman

Abstract

"The results of the first 2 novice series are reported which precede a planned research programme of 4 series which is expected to stretch over a period of 2 years. In each of the two series 50 volunteers participated in a single standard Ganzfeld session with static targets. The over-all direct hit scoring rate was exactly at chance: 25%. Two factors related to the subjects that have been established as successful predictors in previous ganzfeld research were analyzed.

Over 50% of the subjects were or had been practitioner of a mental discipline, like meditation. Those subjects scored above chance consistently in both series (32.1 % over both series, chi2 = 2.5; p= 0.11). Subjects who reported previous paranormal experiences did score non significantly better than subjects that did not report these experiences (27.3% vs 0% in series I and 27.5% vs 20% in series II). Subjects who reported PK events did perform significantly better than other subjects with a scoring rate of 52.8% (chi2=10.8, p=0.02).

Psi-performance correlated negatively with geomagnetic activity in the first series (r=-0.28; p< 0.05) but not significantly so in the second series (r=-0.01, n.s.). The results, which seem to fit an over-all decline in effect size in the reported ganzfeld research with static targets (regression coefficient = -0.023, p=0.02) are discussed in the context of previous meta-analytic results. It is argued that decline effects constitute patterns in the elusiveness of psi."

"The over-all direct hit scoring rate was exactly at chance: 25%....Those subjects scored above chance consistently in both series (32.1 % over both series, chi2 = 2.5; p= 0.11). Subjects who reported previous paranormal experiences did score non significantly better than subjects that did not report these experiences (27.3% vs 0% in series I and 27.5% vs 20% in series II). Subjects who reported PK events did perform significantly better than other subjects with a scoring rate of 52.8% (chi2=10.8, p=0.02)."

Those darn appaling statistics.

There they are the errant assumptions about what rate of matching random words strings will match the picture. You have sample the data to determine a match rate before you can make any choice about what the 'hit' rate should be. If pictures were matched to remove those that have higher 'hit' rates , and all sets were matched to have average hit rates of twenty five percent, and the standard deviations were known, THEN we could say that a hit rate of 'something percent' if obtained over thousands of trials had some sort of meaning.

 

[Dancing David]

What's your explanation for these correlations?

Using a chi table the correlation needs to be .68 to be meaningful. Did any of them reach that level?

 

[Dancing David]

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




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

If they demonstrated a significant effect, which they don't, then yes.

1. Where is the sample data to show that the picture sets were matched to be even for all word strings?

2. What is the 'hit' rate for various pictures in the sets, how was it measured and controled as a counfounding variable.

3. Where has an effect of over two standard deviations or .68 correlation on a chi table been demonstrated?

 

[Dancing David]

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?

If confounding factors are controlled for, and it is significant after thousands of trials. yes, it would have meaning.

The 65% hit rate would be significant but the 20% would not. Assuming the picture match rate of all pictures is 25% to random words strings as sampled amongst the participants.

Se here is the issue, a picture has a round pool in it.

Sample words that are hits "circle", "round", "water', "wet", some pictures due to the imagery are going to have very high hit rates. In fact you would want to limit the cross over between the 'hit' words in a set.

Simple geometric forms , at least twenty would be ideal.

 

[Limbo]

That's the rub, isn't it? How do you decide something couldn't have been inferred through normal means?

Well...the first thing you do is avoid limiting the scope to 'precognition'. We are interested in ANY information that could not have been inferred through normal means...whether it's from the present or the future or even the past. In other words...anomalous cognition in any shape or form.

Have you had any experiences which you would categorize as anomalous?

 

[Limbo]

If confounding factors are controlled for, and it is significant after thousands of trials. yes, it would have meaning.

The 65% hit rate would be significant but the 20% would not. Assuming the picture match rate of all pictures is 25% to random words strings as sampled amongst the participants.

Se here is the issue, a picture has a round pool in it.

Sample words that are hits "circle", "round", "water', "wet", some pictures due to the imagery are going to have very high hit rates. In fact you would want to limit the cross over between the 'hit' words in a set.

Simple geometric forms , at least twenty would be ideal.

Ok so lets say that we are somehow able to gather and synchronize each and every ganzfeld ever published, anywhere. Lets say that after we look we see that the sheep/meditators/artists group has a 65% hit rate. Lets say goats hit below chance expectation.

You seem to be saying that such a thing could be attributed to problems inherent in the ganzfeld itself, such as 'some pictures due to the imagery are going to have very high hit rates'.

If that is so, then we shouldn't expect this effect to be found in other kinds of experiments. Right?

 

[fls]

Well...the first thing you do is avoid limiting the scope to 'precognition'. We are interested in ANY information that could not have been inferred through normal means...whether it's from the present or the future or even the past. In other words...anomalous cognition in any shape or form.

Have you had any experiences which you would categorize as anomalous?

I wasn't limiting the scope to 'precognition'. I was merely trying to pick out something specific to what we have been talking about with respect to anomalous cognition.

I have had many experiences that would be categorized as anomalous. I just figured precognition would be one of the easier ones to describe or characterize.

As an example, one night when I was a teenager, I had a dream that my Aunt (great-aunt actually) Esther and my Uncle Bruno came to talk to me to tell me that Aunt Esther was dead. I don't recall ever dreaming about them before, and I don't usually have dreams where people tell me they are dead. The next day I was telling my mom about the dream and she told me that she had received a phone call in the middle of the night that Aunt Esther had died. This was out-of-the-blue in that she was in her 60's and reasonably healthy and independent. This seems typical for what other people describe.

Linda

 

[Limbo]

As an example, one night when I was a teenager, I had a dream that my Aunt (great-aunt actually) Esther and my Uncle Bruno came to talk to me to tell me that Aunt Esther was dead. I don't recall ever dreaming about them before, and I don't usually have dreams where people tell me they are dead. The next day I was telling my mom about the dream and she told me that she had received a phone call in the middle of the night that Aunt Esther had died. This was out-of-the-blue in that she was in her 60's and reasonably healthy and independent. This seems typical for what other people describe.

You say your mom received a phone call in the middle of the night and was told about Aunt Esther. Is it possible that you could have overheard some of that conversation, and then dreamed about it?

 

[fls]

You say your mom received a phone call in the middle of the night and was told about Aunt Esther. Is it possible that you could have overheard some of that conversation, and then dreamed about it?

So are you saying that precognition depends upon possibility? If so, what sort of cut-off are you looking for?

Linda

 

[Limbo]

So are you saying that precognition depends upon possibility? If so, what sort of cut-off are you looking for?

That and where any cut-offs are, are ultimately an individual decision, I guess. My decisions are heavily influenced by my own experiences. Among them: group "UFO", group "poltergeist" (RSPK), odd dreams, etc.

I'll tell you about one of my recent anomalous experiences. I was driving to a local store, and I saw a pedestrian walking toward the intersection. As I looked at him I had a brief 'flash' of a vision of him on a bus with a gun and getting dragged off the bus by the police. It was an odd sensation.

So I go in the nearby store and about 10 or 15 minutes later I come out. I get in my car and leave the parking lot and there I see a bus on the side of the road surrounded by cop cars. As I drive around the disturbance I see that same guy getting dragged off the bus by cops. It was like deja vu, only it hadn't happen before.

About your dream. There was a normal route that information could have taken to influence your dream. The telephone and your mom. That's why it's helpful to look at similar case studies from before the telephone was invented. Information was much more restricted back then.

If your mom hadn't received a phone call at all that night...then what would we say about it?

 

[fls]

That and where any cut-offs are, are ultimately an individual decision, I guess. My decisions are heavily influenced by my own experiences. Among them: group UFO, group "poltergeist" (RSPK), odd dreams, etc.

I'll tell you about one of my recent anomalous experiences. I was driving to a local store, and I saw a pedestrian walking toward the intersection. As I looked at him I had a brief 'flash' of a vision of him on a bus with a gun and getting dragged off the bus by the police. It was an odd sensation.

So I go in the nearby store and about 10 or 15 minutes later I come out. I get in my car and leave the parking lot and there I see a bus on the side of the road surrounded by cop cars. As I drive around the disturbance I see that same guy getting dragged off the bus by cops.

About your dream. There was a normal route that information could have taken to influence your dream. The telephone and your mom. That's why it's helpful to look at case studies from before the telephone was invented. Information was much more restricted back then.

If your mom hadn't received a phone call at all...then what would we say about it?

Ah, that makes it clearer what you are looking for.

As I was milling about waiting for a race to start, I had a flash picture of the man in front of me on the ground surrounded by paramedics. During the race I came upon the same scene of the man being attended to by paramedics.

I see a picture of an old schoolmate from long ago on my doorstep (I now live far away and in a different country). The next day a stranger on my doorstep turns out to be this schoolmate (he was canvassing for his church). I can't actually remember if my vision was of him when we were in school or what he looked like now, but I remember that I knew who it was.

Linda

 

[Limbo]

As I was milling about waiting for a race to start, I had a flash picture of the man in front of me on the ground surrounded by paramedics. During the race I came upon the same scene of the man being attended to by paramedics.

You could have unconsciously picked up on subtle cues and body movements from that man which indicated poor health.

I see a picture of an old schoolmate from long ago on my doorstep (I now live far away and in a different country). The next day a stranger on my doorstep turns out to be this schoolmate (he was canvassing for his church). I can't actually remember if my vision was of him when we were in school or what he looked like now, but I remember that I knew who it was.

You had a vision and then later you saw his photo on your doorstep, and then he shows up. How much time expired between your vision and the photo on your doorstep?

 

[fls]

You could have unconsciously picked up on subtle cues and body movements from that man which indicated poor health.

??

Of course it's possible to explain away all precognitions. It's not like any I've heard of are so fantastical as to defy explanation. I must admit that I'm surprised that that's your point, given what you've been saying in these threads.

You had a vision and then later you saw his photo on your doorstep, and then he shows up. How much time expired between your vision and the photo on your doorstep?

Sorry I wasn't clear. I didn't see a photo on my doorstep. I saw a picture in my mind - presumably the same thing you called a "brief flash of a vision" (i.e. that is also how I would describe it).

Linda

 

[fls]

You could have unconsciously picked up on subtle cues and body movements from that man which indicated poor health.

I did not mention (not realizing your intention) that he was tripped up by a bystander and the concern was that he'd broken something. There wasn't any poor health to pick up on, although, of course, I could have overhead someone at the grocery store the day before confiding that they were planning on tripping number 82 at the race the next day, and subsequently forgotten about it.

Linda

 

[Dancing David]

Ok so lets say that we are somehow able to gather and synchronize each and every ganzfeld ever published, anywhere. Lets say that after we look we see that the sheep/meditators/artists group has a 65% hit rate. Lets say goats hit below chance expectation.

You seem to be saying that such a thing could be attributed to problems inherent in the ganzfeld itself, such as 'some pictures due to the imagery are going to have very high hit rates'.

If that is so, then we shouldn't expect this effect to be found in other kinds of experiments. Right?

That depends again on the structure, control and sample statistics of those studies as well. many of the published 'effects' are not beyond just 'noise' levels.

For example there is a study that shows a positive effect for believing in psi and a negative effect for noy believing in psi, but it is not statiticaly significant difference, I think it involved precognition is the UK somewhere.

I would be thrilled to see evidence of psi, haven't seen it yet.

 

[Limbo]

It's not like any I've heard of are so fantastical as to defy explanation. I must admit that I'm surprised that that's your point, given what you've been saying in these threads.

Have you heard of PHANTASMS OF THE LIVING by Edmund , Frederic W.H. Myers and Frank Podmore Gurney?

Abstracts of Selected Case Studies from Phantasms of the Living

Case 38 (Type B). The percipient (the same as in Cases 21, 56 and 184), was a scientific draftsman. ". . . about eight in the evening, I was returning to my home . . . on a tramcar, when it flashed into my mind that my assistant, Herr Schell, a Dutchman, who knew but little English (who was coming to see me that evening), would ask me what the English phrase, 'to wit,' meant in Dutch. So vivid was the impression that I mentioned it to my wife on arriving at my house, and I went so far as to scribble it down on the edge of a newspaper which I was reading. Ten minutes afterwards Schell arrived, and almost his first words were the inquiry, 'Wat is het Hollandsch voor "to wit" ?'" (I:235). The newspaper notation was not visible when Schell arrived. "He told me that he had resolved to ask me just before leaving his house . . . the time of his resolution corresponded (as far as we could reckon) with that of my impression" (I:235). The percipient was subject to many such coincidences.

Case 579 (Type A). A second-hand case related by the anti-spiritualist John Maskelyne. His mother-in-law was the percipient; the incident is undated. "Late one evening, whilst sitting alone busily occupied with her needle, a strange sensation came over her, and upon looking up she distinctly saw her aged mother standing at the end of the room. She rubbed her weary eyes and looked again, but the spectre had vanished. She concluded it was imagination, and retired to rest, thinking nothing more of the vision, until the next day brought the news that her mother, at about the same time the apparition had appeared, had fallen down in a fit and expired" (II:532-533).

* Case 184 (Types A and E). The percipient, the scientific draftsman of cases 21, 38, and 56, was working in Paris at the close of 1880. Shortly after the outbreak of a smallpox epidemic, he sent three of his children home to his wife's mother in England. One morning he awoke to the sound of his absent 5-year-old's voice and a vision of his face. The phenomenon repeated later in the day; even though the latest letters from England indicated excellent health, the percipient expressed apprehension to his wife. The family subsequently received word that the child had taken ill suddenly and died at the time of the first apparition. The wife only corroborates her husband's sense of apprehension, noting: "He said afterwards that he had seen a vision" (I:445).

 

[fls]

Have you heard of PHANTASMS OF THE LIVING by Edmund , Frederic W.H. Myers and Frank Podmore Gurney?

Abstracts of Selected Case Studies from Phantasms of the Living

Case 38 (Type B). The percipient (the same as in Cases 21, 56 and 184), was a scientific draftsman. ". . . about eight in the evening, I was returning to my home . . . on a tramcar, when it flashed into my mind that my assistant, Herr Schell, a Dutchman, who knew but little English (who was coming to see me that evening), would ask me what the English phrase, 'to wit,' meant in Dutch. So vivid was the impression that I mentioned it to my wife on arriving at my house, and I went so far as to scribble it down on the edge of a newspaper which I was reading. Ten minutes afterwards Schell arrived, and almost his first words were the inquiry, 'Wat is het Hollandsch voor "to wit" ?'" (I:235). The newspaper notation was not visible when Schell arrived. "He told me that he had resolved to ask me just before leaving his house . . . the time of his resolution corresponded (as far as we could reckon) with that of my impression" (I:235). The percipient was subject to many such coincidences.

Case 579 (Type A). A second-hand case related by the anti-spiritualist John Maskelyne. His mother-in-law was the percipient; the incident is undated. "Late one evening, whilst sitting alone busily occupied with her needle, a strange sensation came over her, and upon looking up she distinctly saw her aged mother standing at the end of the room. She rubbed her weary eyes and looked again, but the spectre had vanished. She concluded it was imagination, and retired to rest, thinking nothing more of the vision, until the next day brought the news that her mother, at about the same time the apparition had appeared, had fallen down in a fit and expired" (II:532-533).

* Case 184 (Types A and E). The percipient, the scientific draftsman of cases 21, 38, and 56, was working in Paris at the close of 1880. Shortly after the outbreak of a smallpox epidemic, he sent three of his children home to his wife's mother in England. One morning he awoke to the sound of his absent 5-year-old's voice and a vision of his face. The phenomenon repeated later in the day; even though the latest letters from England indicated excellent health, the percipient expressed apprehension to his wife. The family subsequently received word that the child had taken ill suddenly and died at the time of the first apparition. The wife only corroborates her husband's sense of apprehension, noting: "He said afterwards that he had seen a vision" (I:445).

Are you suggesting that these defy explanation? Really?

Linda

 

[Ersby]

What's your explanation for these correlations?

I don’t have an explanation. I would like to know, though, if you run approx 150 experiments investigating x number of correlates, how many of those would be statistically significant purely by chance?

You quoted a figure of 75% hit rate from the Juillard Sample (students at a performing arts school) of the PRL trials. Well, that particular sub-sample had only 4 sessions (ie, three hits, one miss) so it’s simply too small to draw any conclusions from.

Also, there was another ganzfeld experiment which used music students among the subjects, and the hit rate for the students was reported at just 8.33%.

You see? You say one number, I say another.

Besides, your recent posts have been about psi in general. Perhaps you should start a new thread?