A Pre-Registered Test of a Correlational Micro-PK Effect: Efforts to Learn from a Failure to "Replicate"

Maier, Markus A. and Dechamps, Moritz C. (August 2022): A Pre-Registered Test of a Correlational Micro-PK Effect: Efforts to Learn from a Failure to "Replicate". In: Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 36, No. 2: pp. 251-263

Abstract

Micro-psychokinesis (micro-PK) research studies the effects of observers' conscious or unconscious intentions on random outcomes derived from true random sources such as quantum random number generators (QRNGs). The micro-PK study presented here was originally planned, preregistered, and conducted to exactly replicate a correlational finding between two within-subject experimental conditions found in an original micro-PK dataset (n = 12,254) using a QRNG. However, after data collection and analyses, a data error was detected in the original to-be-replicated dataset. A reanalysis of the original correlation effect after error correction revealed strong evidence for the absence of a correlation in the original data. This study's primary goal was to test the existence of a correlational micro-PK effect in the present data as specified in the pre-registration. In addition to this replication attempt, the present study also can be considered an unsystematic case report or field study on experimenter psi (e-psi), since a strong expectation was formed initially about the occurrence of an effect that indeed was objectively absent from the original data. This study's results indicate no evidence for the existence of a correlational (and standard) micro-PK effect. In other words, the actual correlational data did not meet the experimenters' conscious expectations, and thus no consciously based effect of e-psi on micro-PK was found. However, the change in evidence for the effect across time described by the sequential Bayes factor resembled a data pattern that also was frequently reported by the experimenters in past studies. Although these data did not meet the criterion of statistical significance and a rejection of the null hypothesis failed, the marginal effects might be interpreted as weak influences based on unconscious e-psi. In addition, the trend observed matches both experimenters' general beliefs about the occurrence of e-psi in micro-PK. These findings' implications for the application of scientific methods to the study of micro-PK and psi in general are discussed.

• Item Type: Journal article
• Keywords: Experimenter effects; experimenter psi (e-psi); micro-psychokinesis (micro-PK); quantum random number generator (qRNG)
• Faculties: Psychology and Education Science > Department Psychology > General Psychology II
• Subjects: 100 Philosophy and Psychology > 130 Parapsychology and occultism
• Language: English