Scientific study of the ouija board

This experiment would tend to if not falsify then at least render less plausible that model though, wouldn't you say? I mean, on that model, where the entire message is known at the start, one would expect  the probability of predicting the next letter to remain constant throughout, rather than, as the study found, to increase with letter count.

I am currently leaning toward First Sight Theory proposed by James Carpenter. He proposes that everything expresses a psi signal which we first receive in our mostly unconscious mental processes. That includes signals representing our human's five senses. Most researchers seem to agree that these psi environmental signals are like a gestalt thoughtform rather than a stream of consciousness signal.

Obviously, some, like our five senses, will seem streaming but they are best modeled as conceptual, rather than objective. Making the distinction helps when considering other questions. In practice, we think in concepts and we become aware of objective.

Conscious thought is streaming, so the mostly unconscious mind must transform the thoughtform into a streaming signal. it does that by way of a filter represented (in the model I work with) by worldview. Worldview is basically a database containing instincts and memory ... what we have been taught is true. In that way, it is thought that we make our perception of the world as we go.

A human characteristic we frequently see is what I refer to as storytelling. In mediumship, the medium might sense the presence of a personality that seems to relate to a particular person. (We often look around the room to find the person that goes with the sense.) The sensed information may be genuine, but by the time it is translated into a conscious thought stream, it is described in terms of what the medium understands. A trained medium can usually recognize this tendency and attempt to just say what is sensed, but many simply do not realize they are coloring the message.

The Ouija Board is no different. Conceptual information is sensed and the sitters begin to unconsciously respond. But, as the information begins to emerge into the conscious mind, they begin to anticipate the usually slow-moving planchette's next move. People do the same thing when listening to someone talk. Our focus begins to switch back and forth between the speaker and other things as we anticipate the next words.

The Psi Field is thought to be a very complex conceptual space. The sensed information might come to one person who then rebroadcasts it to others or it might come as a thoughtform sensed by all who has their attention on the process. We do not know. We are pretty sure a person's attention is essential for contact and this could be expressed by any person in the room or elsewhere who is aware of the process.

This is not a fully vetted model, but it tends to explain a number of different forms of supposed trans-etheric influence. Certainly, the First Sight Theory part of it is receiving a lot of positive attention amongst parapsychologists. It also agrees with emerging theories about how we first unconsciously process information before becoming consciously aware of the results.

The study may have merit, but for different reasons than explained by the authors. That is my main concern about most such studies. The protocol produces results that are interpreted based on the model followed by the researchers. Too often, if they do not know about or accept a contending model, they simply ignore those possibilities.

Please note that I am not trained in any form of psychology. My comments here are more from an engineer acting as a naturalist, so don't take my comments as academically informed.