Things That Go Bump, by Day and by Night: An Expectancy Effect?
Michael A. Thalbourne · Australian journal of parapsychology · 2009
This is a report of a further self-test using a Schmidt Random Number Generator - the tenth such study in the series. The experimenter-participant is prone to experiencing unusual percussive or vibratory phenomena (usually occurring in his feet or on his back). Hypothesising that a psi element may be involved, the experimenter-participant conducted 856 runs (100 binary trials each run) under six different conditions, before the percussive phenomena abruptly ceased. An early dramatic within-session decline effect led to the incorporation of a test for this effect in all sessions individually and combined. Magnitude scores were analyzed in addition to deviation scores. The main results were overall decline effects from the first-half of a session to the second-half of the session, for both types of score. In the case of magnitude scores, the second-half mean run-score was significantly below chance. The author attributes these effects to a general expectation of significant results.