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Demonstration research and meta-analysis in parapsychology
Journal of Parapsychology, The, Sept, 1993 by Stanley Krippner, William Braud, Irvin L. Child, John Palmer, K. Ramakrishna Rao, Marilyn Schlitz, Rhea A. White, Jessica Utts
Meta-Analyses in Other Areas of Psi Research
Another line of research to which meta-analysis has been applied is that of micro-PK involving an electronic random number generator (RNG). Customarily, the randomness is based on the random emission of electrons from a weak radioactive source. In such experiments, the subjects attempt to influence the RNG (or the display of random numbers they are observing) so that the RNG behaves less randomly. A meta-analysis was carried out on the data of 832 RNG studies conducted from 1959 to 1987; 235 "control" studies were included in which RNG output was recorded but no intention was involved on the part of subjects (Radin & Nelson, 1989). The mean effect size for the control studies was not significantly different from zero. The mean effect size for the experimental studies was small, 3.2 x 10 (to the -4th power), but significantly higher than the mean for the control studies (z = 4.1).
Forced-choice (rather than free-response) precognition tests conducted from 1935 to 1987 were subjected to meta-analysis (Honorton & Ferrari, 1989). The time delay in selecting the target ranged from less than one second to one year. Target material ranged from ESP cards to random number generators. From the inspection of 309 studies conducted by 62 senior authors with over 50,000 subjects in nearly 2 million trials, it was found that 30% of the studies obtained statistical significance at the .05 level or higher (where 5% would be expected by chance). The combined z was 11.41 with a p of 6.3 x 10 (to the -25th power). The mean effect sizes showed a clear trend, decreasing in order as the time interval increased from minutes to hours to weeks to months. Weights were given to each study according to criteria for quality, with more weight given to the higher quality studies; the high-quality studies had effect sizes that were not significantly lower than the low-quality studies.
From 1935 to 1987, 148 PK dice experiments were identified for meta-analysis (Radin & Ferrari, 1990). Several thousand subjects had attempted to influence more than 2 million falls of dice by volition; also identified were 31 control studies in which no conscious intention was involved. Combined z scores for the experimental and control studies were 18.2 and 0.18, respectively. Again, as is true for most of the meta-analyses cited, weights for each study were determined by quality, with more weight given to higher quality studies; in this instance, there was a significant relationship between quality and effect size, with higher quality studies producing lower weighted effect sizes. This was an exception to the general trend of results, but the correlation was no longer significant when the studies with extreme effect sizes were removed. It was also noted that more nonsignificant studies were published after the PA-affiliated journals, in 1975, adopted an official policy of publishing nonsignificant results. This suggests that some earlier nonsignificant studies were never published; hence the necessity of statistical adjustments for possible unpublished studies.
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