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Abstract

This paper describes a second study designed to explore the relationship between ESP and PK performance by testing for both using a common protocol so as to control for expectancy effects and experimental artifacts. Following earlier work (Roe, Davey & Stevens, 2003), we were particularly concerned to gauge the effect upon performance of the mild deception inherent in the study design. Forty participants completed a computer-based greyhound racing game. Races occurred in two blocks of 12. One block was presented as an ESP task and required participants to nominate which of the six greyhounds had won a race that the computer had already run silently. The program then replayed the race as feedback. The other block was presented as a PK task and required participants to ‘will’ a greyhound that was selected for them to run faster than its competitors. The greyhound’s movements were determined in real time by an RNG. However, within each block half the races were in fact ESP trials and half PK trials, presented in random order. Participants were randomly allocated to one of two conditions; in the uninformed condition participants were not aware that some trials would be disguised in this way, but those in the informed condition were accurately briefed. Performance was non-significantly below chance for both ESP and PK trials, and for both true and disguised trials. There were no significant relationships between performance in the four conditions, although the effect sizes were of a similar magnitude and direction to those found previously. Participants who had been accurately briefed performed significantly worse than did those who were subject to mild deception (Z = –2.53, p = 0.01). Only one of the individual differences measures was able to significantly predict task performance, and this seems likely to have arisen as a result of multiple analyses. Reasons for participants’ poor performance at the task are proposed, some of which will be considered in future research.

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• Are ESP and PK aspects of a unitary phenomenon? The effects of deception when testing the relationship between ESP and PK. (deposited 15 Feb 2009 09:44)
  • Are ESP and PK aspects of a unitary phenomenon? The effects of deception when testing the relationship between ESP and PK. (deposited 30 Sep 2009 19:25) [Currently Displayed]