RetroPsychoKinesis Experiment Summary

Last updated: Tuesday 2024 July 2 6:01 UTC

This report is updated daily

Overall Summary

“Subjects” is the number of different E-mail addresses or “handles” in the log file; there is no assurance a given individual may not have entered a number of different identities, either intentionally or by accident. The number of experiments includes only “for the record” experiments, not those designated in advance by the subject as “practice”. Since each experiment involves 1024 bits, the total number of “Tries” in the next line is 572162×1024, or 585893888. Examination of the logged bit sequences sent to the subjects shows that 292938966 of the total of 585893888 bits were “Hits”—they agree with the subject's previously-chosen goal. There were, then, 7978 fewer bits among a total of 585893888 consistent with the subjects' intent to bias the generator. This is equivalent to changing one bit in every 73438 in the direction opposed to that chosen by the subject. The measured bias amounts to 0.6592 standard deviations.

Hit Histogram

The following chart summarises the results of all for-the-record experiments (excluding runs designated in advance as "practice" runs by the subject, which are logged for completeness, but do not figure in the statistical analysis) performed since the RPKP experiments were begun in January of 1997.

The blue curve gives the normal distribution for a large number of trials of 1024 events with probability 0.5. (For a number of trials as large as 1024, the binomial and normal distributions are equal on the scale of this plot.) The red boxes show the actual number of experimental runs which resulted in the given number of hits. A “hit” is defined as the number of bits in the 1024 bit stream which agreed with the subject's previously chosen one-or-zero goal.

Cumulative Deviation from Expectation

Any experiment involving a random data source can be expected to, in the absence of perturbing influences, follow a random walk around the most probable value. As the number of experiments increases, overall divergences should decrease. When examining the results of such experiments, it's important to satisfy yourself that any non-chance effect you observe doesn't result from the experimenter choosing to show you results at a peak or trough of a series which is swinging to both sides of the chance expectation with a mean value equal to chance. The following is a deviation plot of the all 572162 RPKP experiments to date; it shows the absolute divergence of the experimental results in the direction of bias preselected by the subject compared to that expected by chance, and the divergence in terms of standard deviations for the cumulative number of trials for a probability of 0.5 on each trial.

Cumulative Deviation by Intent from Expectation

Another way to evaluate the results of the experiments is to examine how frequently the result of an experiment (excess of one or zero bits) agrees with the subject's pre-declared goal, regardless of the magnitude of the deviation from the mean value. If the subject has chosen a goal corresponding to an excess of one bits, the experiment will be scored as a success if there is any excess of one bits at all (513 one bits out of 1024 is just as much a success as 527 one bits and, conversely, 511 one bits is as much a failure as a result of 497 one bits). If the subject chooses a goal corresponding to an excess of zero bits, the sense of the comparison is inverted: any excess of zero bits is deemed a success. To preserve symmetry, results with an equal number of zero and one bits (512 each in an experiment of 1024 bits) are considered neutral and do not change the cumulative result. Here we plot the cumulative deviation by intent as z: the number of standard deviations by which it differs from the expectation value of zero.

Runs by Subjects Histogram

The following table shows the number of experiments run by various subjects, and the cumulative results and standard deviation for each number of experiments. Individual subjects who have made a large number of runs appear show up at the bottom of the the table, and the results they obtained can be compared.

Results by Visual Feedback Program

The table at the right shows results obtained by all subjects, sorted by the visual feedback program they selected.

Results by Goal

Each visual feedback program allows the user to choose a goal which corresponds to either an excess of zero or one bits in the data stream. The following table gives results by goal, indicating how many times each goal was chosen. The default goal is an excess of one bits.

Control Run Report

Custom Log Report

Experiments Table of Contents

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