Extrasensory Perception (ESP)
Nostradamus
-fortune teller; (1503-66) French physician and astrologer who wrote a book of rhymed prophecies -became famous with royalty for his prophecies predicted many bad things such as -The Great Fire of London -Adolf Hitler and the Nazis -9/11 -Iraq War -Hurricane Katrina
con artist methods
-play the odds: use confirmation bias to get victims to ignore your failures -misdirection: capitalize on attention lapses: switch out objects during lapse -physics: most don't have intuitive understanding -Optical illusions -Lack of imagination -blaming skepticism
publication bias
-situation where research demonstrating favorable results is more likely to be published than results showing negative results. -due to the company's pressure on performance and competition -done in response to replication failures
hindsight bias
-the tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it -"I knew it all along" -truth is that outcome wasn't known
mind machine experiment
2002 Researcher Wiseman has 28000 people predict 4 coin tosses -conducted in public places such as museums, malls, etc. -chance performances were about 6.2% accuracy rate
skepticism
A philosophy which suggests that nothing can ever be known for certain.
prediction
A statement of what will happen next in an uncertain sequence of events.
telepathy
Communication from one mind to another without speech, writing, or other sensory means
Daryl Bem
Cornell University professor developed the self-perception theory
Redelmeier and Tversky (1996)
Followed 18 patients with arthritis for 18 months. Patients were asked to record their pain and joint tenderness, while researchers documented changes in the weather. Nearly all patients believed that their condition was associated with weather changes, when the actual correlation was near ZERO
5 senses
Sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste
con artist
a person who cheats or tricks others by persuading them to believe something that is not true -feed upon the desperate -claim to have ESP
psychokinesis
ability to move objects with one's mind
extrasensory perception examples
crystal balls tarot cards astrology palm reading dreams/omens spirit visitation
postdiction
explaining phenomena after they have already occurred
precognition
knowing something before it happens fortune cookie
debris monitor
participants asked whether Deluth, Minnesota should have hired a debris monitor -participants are separated into informed and uniformed groups uninformed knew facts ahead of time informed knew the facts and that a flood occurred due to debris -results: 24% of uniformed wanted debris monitor while 56% of informed group wanted to hire a debris monitor
clairvoyance
perceiving remote events fortune teller
illusory correlation
perception of a statistical association between two variables where none exists - belief that people in urban environments tend to be rude -weather vs arthritis
Why do people claim to have ESP?
some people actually believe that they have psychic power due to illusory correlations and confirmation bias.
replication failure
some psychological findings and other sciences do not replicate when tests are rerun repeatedly
types of extrasensory perception (ESP)
telepathy clairvoyance precognition
extrasensory perception (ESP)
the controversial claim that perception can occur apart from sensory input; includes telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition -no compelling scientific evidence to support any form of ESP
parapsychology
the study of paranormal phenomena, including ESP and psychokinesis purported paranormal phenomena the study of paranormal and psychic phenomena, including telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, near-death experiences, synchronicity, reincarnation, and other paranormal claims
confirmation bias
the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one's existing beliefs or theories. -people "forget" contradictory evidence -superstitions
self-perception theory
theory that we acquire our attitudes by observing our behaviors
