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It
is well established that some individuals achieve greater effects
than
others
in psi experiments.
Figure
1 shows
the distribution of results across
operators
(subjects)
in a series of REG runs. 20
Given this correlation of
individual operator identities and characteristics with some of the alleged psi
phenomena,
it
is also
important
to understand how individual operator effects
are related to collective effects.
The point was made that,
in seeking larger
data bases and greater
(collective)
significance
levels,
researchers should not
L°f
, ind
effects by combining many operators.
Scientifically
the individual and group effects pose
two distinct sets of questions.
Effect size
is another crucial issue in parapsychology.
From the
standpoint of practical significance,
the effect appears
to be quite small
In
the largest REG data base of over 750,000 trials
(150 million bits),
compiled at
the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory over the past decade
the overall means were shifted in the intended direction by only 0.035%.
Figure
2 plots graphically the total cumulative deviations from baseline of all
operators
in the program (accounting for 250,000 trials
in each direction). 21
It can be seen that,
while the deviation
is well beyond the
.05 significance
level,
it is not an enormous effect
--
although
it
is said to be beyond the
tolerance
level of many contemporary microelectronics processors,
communications
discriminators,
and dedicated computational arrays.
Nevertheless,
parapsychologists point out that psi effects,
if indeed that
is what they are,
could be amplified by information theory techniques such as
majority vote counting."
It
is said that the effect size in the best ganzfeld
psi research
is approximately equal
to that found in the recent studies of
aspirin in heart attack prevention.
And small effect sizes
in physical
p enomena
(e,g*,
the bending of light by gravity)
have been very important
in
the evolution of human knowledge in the past.
Indeed,
the evolution of life
itself depends on genetic mutations which occur at very low rates
In other
words
significance
(in the
"real world"
sense)
and effect size
are
two separate
considerations.
It
is not the magnitude of an event,
but
its centrality and
relevance
to established beliefs or processes,
that determines
its
importance.
Effect size means different things
in the context of different
types
of
experiments.
The average effect sizes found in psi ganzfeld experiments
(about
.17
in one series of experiments described at the workshop)
are several
times
larger than those found
in the REG work.
The anomalies being displayed
(if
indeed they are true anomalies) may well be of fundamentally different
types.
The primary value of using effect sizes appears
to be
in compensating for
differences
in sample
size.
in me
The key
to satisfying proponents and critics of parapsychology may,
end,
be replicability.
If a "recipe"
for replication of successful
parapsychology experiments could be developed,
it would render moot many of the
ssues of statistical analysis.
However,
failure
to replicate does not disprove
the existence of psi;
and the criteria for replicability can be difficult
to
20 Dunne,
B.J.,
et al.
Individual operator contributions
in large data base
anomalies experiments
(Technical Note PEAR 88002).
Research Report.
Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research,
July 1988.
21 Jahn,
R.G.
& B.J.
Dunne,
op.
cit.,
p.
110.
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t »
t
H1CH
INTENTION
~
I
+ +
«2 83
ao
w
GRAND
ULAN
+
2t 8# M
( b
)
BASELINE
GRAND ULAN
+ + +
+ + 29 40 TO
+ + 58 1041B2
+ + +
30 44
+ +20*3 83 42 42
DEFECTED KEAN
(e)
LOW
INTENTION
+ + + 4
EXPECTED
MEAN
. + + + ,*.20 63 41
+ + + + + 4’**0S*#
GRAND MEAN
+a»M»« #™30
NUMBER OF OPERATORS
FIGURE
1:
200-Sample
REG,
ASCENDING. OPERATOR MEANS
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