Northampton Electronic Collection of Theses and Research

Do you know who is calling? Experiments in anomalous cognition in phone call receivers

Schmidt, S., Erath, D., Ivanova, V. and Walach, H. (2009) Do you know who is calling? Experiments in anomalous cognition in phone call receivers. Open Psychology Journal. 2, pp. 12-18. 1874-3501.

Item Type: Article
Abstract: Many people report that they know in advance who is on the phone when the telephone is ringing. Sheldrake and Smart [1, 2] conducted experiments where participants had to determine which one of four possible callers is on the phone while the telephone was still ringing. They report highly significant hit rates that cannot be explained by conventional theories. We attempted to replicate these findings in a series of three experiments. In study one, 21 participants were asked to identify the callers of 20 phone calls each. Overall 26.7 % were identified correctly (mean chance expectation 25%, ns). In a second study a pre-selection test was introduced in a different experimental setting. Eight participants identified 30% of the calls correctly (p = .15). However one of the participants recognized 10 out of 20 calls correctly (p = .014). We conducted a third study with only this participant. In an additional 60 trials she could identify 24 callers correctly (p = .007). We conclude that we could not find any anomalous cognition effect in self-selected samples. But our data also strongly suggest that there are a few participants who are able to score reliably and repeatedly above chance
Uncontrolled Keywords: Anomalous cognition, telephone experiments, ecological validity, telepathy
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology > BF1161 Telepathy. Mind reading. Thought transference
B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology > BF1001 Parapsychology. Psychic research. Psychology of the conscious
Creators: Schmidt, Stefan, Erath, D, Ivanova, V and Walach, Harald
Publisher: Bentham Science Publishers
Faculties, Divisions and Institutes: University Faculties, Divisions and Research Centres - OLD > Faculty of Health & Society > Psychology
University Faculties, Divisions and Research Centres - OLD > Research Centre > Centre for the Study of Anomalous Psychological Processes
Faculties > Faculty of Health & Society > Psychology
Research Centres > Centre for Psychology and Social Sciences
Date: 2009
Date Type: Publication
Page Range: pp. 12-18
Journal or Publication Title: Open Psychology Journal
Volume: 2
Language: English
ISSN: 1874-3501
Status: Published / Disseminated
Refereed: Yes
URI: http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/id/eprint/2032

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