Retro-priming, priming, and double testing: psi and replication in a test–retest design

Abstract

Numerous experiments have been conducted in recent years on anomalous retroactive influences on cognition and affect (Bem, 2010), yet more data are needed to understand these processes precisely. For this purpose, we carried out an initial retro-priming study in which the response times of 162 participants were measured (Rabeyron and Watt, 2010). In the current paper, we present the results of a second study in which we selected those participants who demonstrated the strongest retro-priming effect during the first study, in order to see if we could replicate this effect and therefore select high scoring participants. An additional objective was to try to find correlations between psychological characteristics (anomalous experiences, mental health, mental boundaries, trauma, negative life events) and retro-priming results for the high scoring participants. The retro-priming effect was also compared with performance on a classical priming task. Twenty-eight participants returned to the laboratory for this new study. The results, for the whole group, on the retro-priming task, were negative and non-significant (es = −0.25, ns) and the results were significant on the priming task (es = 0.63, p < 0.1). We obtained overall negative effects on retro-priming results for all the sub-groups (students, male, female). Ten participants were found to have positive results on the two retro-priming studies, but no specific psychological variables were found for these participants compared to the others. Several hypotheses are considered in explaining these results, and the author provide some final thoughts concerning psi and replicability.

A preregistered multi-lab replication of Maier et al. (2014, Exp. 4) testing retroactive avoidance

“…Dechamps and Maier [ 34 ] (see also [ 32 , 33 ]), by taking the theoretical constraints of the no-signal-theorem into account, recently proposed an extension of the GQT that supposes systematic non-random oscillations of the evidence for the effect across time. The results are also in line with previous observations regarding replicability in the field of psi research [ 47 ]. Bierman [ 48 ] describes it as “negative reliability”; Beloff [ 49 ] speaks of psi as “actively evasive”; Pallikari and Boller [ 50 ] mention a “balancing effect” between positive and negative replications; and Hansen [ 51 ] has proposed a broader theory called “the trickster” to explain negative results of this nature.…”

Why Most Research Findings About Psi Are False: The Replicability Crisis, the Psi Paradox and the Myth of Sisyphus

“…Or, maybe that the one who has originally conceived the experiment? Are there degrees of influence between the 8 For example, we have replicated the retro-priming experiment designed by Bem four times with a total of 344 participants (t = 0.92; d = 0.049; CI = −0.016, 0.16; p = 0.360; Rabeyron and Watt, 2010;Rabeyron, 2014;Rabeyron et al, 2018). One of the experiments has also been conducted with a population composed of artist in order to increase the effect but no significant result has been obtained (Rabeyron et al, 2018).…”

“…The non-transmission axiom could also explain the decline effect and the oscillating trends in the data ( Pallikari and Boller, 1997 ; Maier et al, 2018 ; Maier and Dechamps, 2018 ). This last aspect is particularly interesting because these oscillating patterns might be detected, demonstrated, and analyzed when they are compared with classical effects ( Rabeyron, 2014 ).…”

Anomalous Experiences, Trauma, and Symbolization Processes at the Frontiers between Psychoanalysis and Cognitive Neurosciences

“… 1 Another recent example concerns, on a more experimental level, studies based on psi perceptions which have contributed to an ongoing debate about methodology and replicability in psychology and medical research (Bem, 2011 ; Wagenmakers et al, 2011 ; Rabeyron, 2014 ). …”