data_bem_psychic: Bem Psychic - Ch13 - from Bem and Honorton (1994)
In rcalinjageman/esci: Estimation Statistics with Confidence Intervals

data_bem_psychic

R Documentation

Bem Psychic - Ch13 - from Bem and Honorton (1994)

Description

Daryl Bem was an experienced mentalist and research psychologist, who, a decade earlier, had been one of several outside experts invited to scrutinize the laboratory and experimental procedures of parapsychology researcher Charles Honorton. Bem not only judged them adequate, but joined the research effort and became a coauthor with Honorton. Bem and Honorton (1994) first reviewed early ganzfeld studies and described how the experimental procedure had been improved to reduce the chance that results could be influenced by various possible biases, or leakages of information from sender to receiver. For example, the randomization procedure was carried out automatically by computer, and all stimuli were presented under computer control. Bem and Honorton then presented data from studies conducted with the improved procedure. Table 13.1 presents basic data from 10 studies reported by Bem and Honorton (1994). Participants each made a single judgment, so in Pilot 1, for example, 22 participants responded, with 8 of them giving a correct response. Three pilot studies helped refine the procedures, then four studies used novice receivers. Study 5 used 20 students of music, drama, or dance as receivers, in response to suggestions that creative people might be more likely to show telepathy. Studies 6 and 7 used receivers who had participated in an earlier study. The proportion of hits expected by chance is .25, and Table 13.1 shows that all but Study 1 found proportions higher than .25.