A simple telepathy test: which word did I write?

No, not necessarily of lot of replies.

If, for example, five people in a row give the correct answer, the probability for this would be only (1/4)^5 = 1/1024 = 0.00097656, which is largely beyond the conventional significance level of 5%.

I think a lot of poor science has been published using that 5% rule. A 5% level is such that there is one chance in 20 that a study will give the wrong answer - which isn't usually good enough for parapsychology research.

In practise, I study carefully each answer given, and I distinguish between the answers which seem reliable and those which do not (I have been doing this for many years).

I can't do this with your answer though, since you did not participate in this test.

You are right, I didn't because as I explained, I think that broadly speaking, evidence for psi comes in two forms - rare events associated with extremely emotional situations - typically death or near death - and large studies that produce information with large numbers of participants.

Here is a little homework for you. Two answers have already been given in this test. Could you tell if one seems more reliable/credible than the other?

Obviously, I do not claim success when just 25% of answers are correct. It is the systematic deviation from the chance level which is of interest.

I think you like to present yourself as the one 'real' scientist talking to a group of morons. You might get a lot more from this forum by actually participating in some of the many discussions we have here.

If you have been posing these challenges for many years, you might want to share some of your conclusions so that we can all criticise your methods or maybe declare them sound.

The reason I participate here is because I think there is enough evidence of psi events and also there is no satisfactory theory of consciousness - what are your reasons?

David

The way people identify psychic perceptions is that something pops into their mind without any identifiable cause.

If they know the possible answers in a forced choice psychic test, then those answers are going to be floating around in their mind as they try to decide which is correct, and they will have no way to distinguish what might be caused by psychic perception from what is caused by considering the possible answers.

If you ask someone what is the picture in an sealed envelope, there won't be anything in the question itself to interfere with whatever might pop into consciousness from psychic perceptions.

The way you judge the answers is to have a judge who doesn't know the target photo try to distinguish the actual photo from one or more decoy photos based on the perceptions reported by the experimental subject.

The way people identify psychic perceptions is that something pops into their mind without any identifiable cause.

...

When something pops into your mind, you aren't making any effort, there really isn't anything you can do except quiet the mental noise with meditation, or get into a deeply relaxed state with a lot of alpha and/or theta brain waves, or practice a lot.  

For this reason forced choice isn't "easier" than trying to perceive an unknown image as long as the image depicts something that can be easily recognized by most people. If it is an every day object it would be easy to recognize, or even if it is something unusual that has a distinct shape or color etc, it should be easy to recognize that aspect of it. 

And most people perceive psychically through mental imagery more often than through words. So perceiving a word would actually be less likely ("harder") than a random picture for most people.

And people do better sketching their perceptions than they do if they only describe them verbally.

I would like to now give the results of the test.

My opening post was:

I recently wrote one of the following four words: "table", "chair", "house" and "garden" in one of my computer files, and I highlighted it (in yellow).

I ask you to tell me which of these four words I wrote.

The word was selected by means of this random number generator: https://www.random.org/integers/ , all four words have equal probabilities.

Thank you for your cooperation.

The first answer was given by Laird, an Administrator of this forum:

(spoiler="My answer")
Garden
(/spoiler)

The second (and last) answer was provided by Mediochre:

I have no idea but just on first random gut instinct:

(spoiler=guess)
chair
(/spoiler)

Probably wrong but whatever.

Notice there are a number of elements which make this answer less credible than the one given by Laird: this member's funny forum name, he's not an admin, he said "I have no idea" and "probably wrong".

The correct answer is "garden", and therefore this test achieves a 100% hit rate for the most credible answer(s), and a 50% global hit rate.

Both are significantly higher than the chance level of 25%.

At the same time, one should keep in mind that it is impossible to reach definitive conclusions so long as these kind of successes remain isolated, and aren't sufficiently repeated.

[Laird]

In fairness, I picked "garden" because it struck me as the odd one out: it was the only "outside" item. (After picking it, I realised that sometimes, tables and chairs are found outside too, but generally I associate them with the indoors. Also, a house has an outside aspect too, but we spend most of our time inside our houses - or at least I do).

Whether that confounds the result or not I don't know.

Also, Mediochre is a long-time and perfectly credible member, and while you noted his "I have no idea" and "probably wrong", you ignored his "first random gut instinct", which presumably is the best way to choose compatible with psi.

Finally, given a sample size of one or two, the hit rate is essentially meaningless.

In fairness, I picked "garden" because it struck me as the odd one out: it was the only "outside" item. (After picking it, I realised that sometimes, tables and chairs are found outside too, but generally I associate them with the indoors. Also, a house has an outside aspect too, but we spend most of our time inside our houses - or at least I do).

Whether that confounds the result or not I don't know.

Also, Mediochre is a long-time and perfectly credible member, and while you noted his "I have no idea" and "probably wrong", you ignored his "first random gut instinct", which presumably is the best way to choose compatible with psi.

Finally, given a sample size of one or two, the hit rate is essentially meaningless.

Mediochre said:

I have no idea but just on first random gut instinct:

(spoiler=guess)
chair
(/spoiler)

Probably wrong but whatever.

I am not convinced that "the first random gut instinct" is actually the best way to be succesful in such a test.

You see, when I do such a test, I repeat the target many, many times. If the first "trial" (attempt to communicate) is not succesful, than perhaps the second one, or the third one and so on ...

As to "gut", these tests addresses your brains, obviously, and I can imagine some kind of limited interest.

Nevertheless, I would agree that Mediochre's answer (which I do not find mediocre) did have some relatively small credibility (it deserved more than zero on the credibility rating scale).

The negative elements in it are obvious.

As for your correct answer, I find interesting that, in the first test I did on this forum, you wrote (6 years ago):

Three too - not because of any sort of premonition, just because it's something of a favourite number of mine.

This was obviously a very low credibility answer (note: this is not a criticism), and your answer was then incorrect.

But, in this test, you could have written a similar disparaging comment (e.g. I just picked "garden" because it was the only "outside" item), but somehow and mysteriously, you didn't this time.

This led me to find your answer credible, though it wasn't the best credible answer I have ever seen, because of its brevity, its lack of comments.

The findings of this test are consistent with those of many other tests I have done (including on this forum, where this is my fourth test).

[Laird]

But, in this test, you could have written a similar disparaging comment (e.g. I just picked "garden" because it was the only "outside" item), but somehow and mysteriously, you didn't this time.

As I said though, it's not clear that this confounds the result: for example, I might have rationalised my choice after the fact, without being aware of having done so, with the choice being genuinely psychic.

As Chris pointed out in the old thread to which you linked, these credibility judgements should be done blind, not by the experimenter himself.

The findings of this test are consistent with those of many other tests I have done

Haven't you now decided that my answer is after all "low credibility", such that you have no credible answers, in which case, are there even any findings from this test?

As I said though, it's not clear that this confounds the result: for example, I might have rationalised my choice after the fact, without being aware of having done so, with the choice being genuinely psychic.

As Chris pointed out in the old thread to which you linked, these credibility judgements should be done blind, not by the experimenter himself.


Haven't you now decided that my answer is after all "low credibility", such that you have no credible answers, in which case, are there even any findings from this test?

No, I don't view your answer in this latest test as a "low credibility" answer, and I also don't view you as a "low credibility" member.

I mean, I respect you as a member of this forum (and I respect Mediochre too).

It is not necessarily a bad thing when the level of credibility of answers changes from one test to the other.

I fail to see how anything you picked out about me or my comment has any legitimate effect on my answer's "credibility". It's a simple and entirely informal test from which no meaningful conclusions can be drawn. Pick a word out of four, you're right or you're wrong, done. But apparently me not being an admin lowers my responses credibility? I mean... really? Let alone nitpicking the rest of what I said, your criteria seems entirely subjective and meaningless.

I fail to see how anything you picked out about me or my comment has any legitimate effect on my answer's "credibility". It's a simple and entirely informal test from which no meaningful conclusions can be drawn. Pick a word out of four, you're right or you're wrong, done. But apparently me not being an admin lowers my responses credibility? I mean... really? Let alone nitpicking the rest of what I said, your criteria seems entirely subjective and meaningless.

I have been doing these tests for many years, and I have found that "persons of authority" (such as forum moderators or administrators , or a former moderator) tend to perform better.

This is easy to understand: giving the right answer in a test proves they are smart, and that their leadership is somehow more justified.
So, yes, not being an admin reduces your credibility somewhat (but not a lot, just to the level of a normal member).

Also, the fact that you first said "I have no idea" and then (at the end) "Probably wrong" did reduce the credibility of your answer.

Think about this: when you said "Probably wrong", you got close to the truth. This may indicate there is potential talent in you.

I have found that credibility analyses, though sometimes criticized, are important in these ESP (extra-sensory perception) tests, to raise the results above chance level in a serious and objective way.

It would however be nice if one could dispense with them entirely, of course. 

Now, about my test "not being formal".

Perhaps you should (also with your colleagues on this forum) give a thought or two about what "formal tests" have achieved in parapsychology, in terms of mainstream recognition.