| Reference code: | PT/FB/BL-2002-054.10 |
| Location: | Arquivo PCA - Pasta 12/2002
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Title:
| Remarkable correspondances between Ganzfeld mentation and target content - psi or a cognitive illusion?
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| Publication year: | 2004
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URL:
| http://gup.ub.gu.se/publication/105460-remarkable-correspondences-between-ganzfeld-mentation-and-target-content-psi-or-a-cognitive-illusion
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| Abstract/Results: | ABSTRACT:
Remarkable correspondences between Ganzfeld mentation and target content have been reported since the early start of Ganzfeld experiments in parapsychology. These correspondences may be due to some anomalous information transfer (e.g., telepathy) or they may be due to a cognitive illusion on the part of the person who perceives them as remarkable. The present paper presents two studies conducted in order to investigate which of these two possibilities is the more probable. Both studies were based on data collected during the first formal experiment run with a new technique called Digital Ganzfeld (Goulding, Westerlund, Parker & Wackermann, 2001). In this experiment the receiver’s mentation was stored as a digital audio file that was synchronized with the target videoclip (as well as with the three decoy clips, as all clips were of exactly the same length). An external judge (JW) then played the mentation file together with the different clips in the set that was used and ranked the different clips according to similarities with the mentation. The main result was close to chance with a direct hit rate of 23% (Goulding, Westerlund, Parker & Wackermann, 2004). However, at the same time as the judge did this judging, he also tried to discern any correspondences between the mentation and any of the four clips (before knowing which one was the target) that appeared to him to be very remarkable (presented as Study 1 in this paper). A total of 20 remarkable correspondences were collected. Of these, only 6 (30%) were correspondences between the mentation and the target whereas the remaining 14 (70%) were correspondences between the mentation and decoys. This result is not significantly different from chance expectation. It was argued that this result gives some support to the cognitive illusion hypothesis, but that the study was lacking in statistical power. In order to gain stronger statistical power, a group of 11 students rated each of the 20 correspondences on scales ranging from 0-100 (presented as Study 2 in the present paper). The students did not rate the correspondences that were hits (i.e., correspondences with the target) as significantly more impressive than the correspondences that were misses (i.e., correspondences with one of the decoys). This result speaks against the psi-hypothesis, but the results should be interpreted with some caution since the students could not be said to have been 100% blind. Taken together, the results of the two studies presented here help us be more conservative about concluding that remarkable correspondences between receiver mentation and target content are due to psi when they may be due to cognitive illusions (or subjective validation).
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| Accessibility: | Document does not exist in file
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Language:
| eng
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Author:
| Westerlund, J.
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Secondary author(s):
| Parker, A., Dalkvist, J., Goulding, A.
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Document type:
| Abstract
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Number of reproductions:
| 2
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Reference:
| Westerlund, J., Parker, A., Dalkvist, J., & Goulding, A. (2005). Remarkable correspondences between Ganzfeld mentation and target content: Psi or a cognitive illusion? Journal of Parapsychology, 69(1), 45-46.
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| Indexed document: | Yes
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| Keywords: | Parapsychology / Ganzfeld / Digital ganzfeld / Mentation / Psi / Cognitive illusion
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