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Experimental Tests for Telephone Telepathy

Authors:
  • Institute of Noetic Sciences

Abstract

Many people claim to have known who was calling before they picked up the telephone, or to have thought about someone for no apparent reason, who then called. We carried out a series of experiments to test whether or not people really could tell who was telephoning. Each participant had four potential callers, and when the telephone rang had to guess who was calling before the other person spoke. By chance the success rate would have been 25%. In a total of 571 trials, involving 63 participants, the overall success rate was 40%, with 95% confidence limits from 36 to 45%. This effect was hugely significant statistically (p = 4 x 10-16). We obtained similar positive effects when the calls were made at randomly chosen times, and when the calls were made at fixed times known to the subject in advance. With 37 participants, we compared the success rates with familiar and unfamiliar callers and found a striking difference. With familiar callers, 53% of the guesses were correct (n = 190; p = 1 x 10-16). With unfamiliar callers, only 25% of the guesses were correct, exactly at the chance level. This difference between the responses with familiar and unfamiliar callers was highly significant (p = 3 x 10-7). We also investigated the effects of distance between the callers and participants. With overseas callers at least 1,000 miles away, the success rate was 65% (n = 43; p = 3 x 10-8). With callers in Britain, the success rate was lower (35%). In most cases, the overseas callers were people to whom the participants were closely bonded. For the successful identification of callers, emotional closeness seemed to be more important than physical proximity.
... Our proposal relies on logic similar to that used in the earlier experiments, while at the same time taking advantage of a dependent measure (blood oxygenation level dependent [BOLD] hemodynamic response) that is substantially more informative than low-density ERPs; fMRI provides far more information about the location of activation than does low-density ERP, and in so doing affords us the opportunity to detect more possible distinct ''sources'' for an effect. In an additional effort to document a psi effect, we recruited biologically or emotionally related participants (e.g., identical twins) because of anecdotal and experimental evidence suggesting that they are more prone to psi (Sheldrake & Smart, 2003;Taylor, 2003;Playfair, 1999). We also used emotional stimuli, which have similarly been implicated in psi (Sherwood, Dalton, Steinkamp, & Watt, 2000;Cornell, 1999;Moss & Gengerelli, 1967, 1970Myers, 1903). ...
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Statistical Inference Different Types of Statistical Intervals: An Overview The Assumption of Sample Data The Central Role of Practical Assumptions Concerning “Representative Data” Enumerative versus Analytic Studies Basic Assumptions for Enumerative Studies Additional Aspects of Analytic Studies Convenience and Judgment Samples Sampling People Infinite Population Assumptions Practical Assumptions: Overview Practical Assumptions: Further Example Planning the Study The Role of Statistical Distributions The Interpretation of a Statistical Interval Comments Concerning Subsequent Discussion