From verme003@umn.edu Wed Jun 1 18:51:56 2005 Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 15:21:52 -0500 From: Hans Wendt To: rdnelson Subject: What role of the experimenter? Observers have been asking whether the Nelson et al. random generator results are influenced by the Experimenter, or that individual's "mind" even serves as an essential conduit, as I understand the issue. The entwinement may or may not include currently obscure ("anomalous"?) pathways and dispositions. In the context it may be productive--even though not ultimate proof--to look for differences in Experimenter personality and motivation, changes over time, and other determinants from the psychological research catalog. Below I am comparing some of the results obtained among the persons or "hypothesis sources" in the GCP trials (cf. Table 2) who made predictions about the connections between some collective "coherent" state and changes in the entropy of random event generators. The number of the individuals working in that capacity is highly unbalanced; about 100 of the 200 or so trials are due the chief investigator, R. Nelson, the remainder are distributed among less than 60. Nevertheless, some classifications are possible, and the parallel statistics may serve as one approach to the problem at hand. Ignoring for the moment other confounds a split into two segments also permits a tentative look at changes over time. All Z values in Table 2 as of May 3, 2005, have been used. Those include results from additional processing, secondary statistics such as variances, and items later removed from the main analysis because of redundancy or other problems. There are nine such instances. A. Events No. 1 - 100 (August 7, 1998 - January 28, 2002). Nelson only Others Nelson with others Others with Nelson Mean Z 0.4703 (N=47) 0.3343 (38) 1.6803 (3) 0.4837 (12) S.D. 1.0623 0.9720 0.9057 0.9589 Var. 1.1285 0.9448 0.8204 0.9196 Min. -1.776 -2.085 0.934 -1.123 Max. 3.209 2.428 2.688 2.207 B. Events No. 101- 199 (February 9, 2002 - April 23, 2005). Mean Z 0.2501 (56) 0.1299 (26) -0.9270 (5) 0.1478 (12) S.D. 0.9559 0.9425 1.4280 1.2595 Var. 0.9137 0.8884 2.0392 1.5863 Min. -1.723 -2.060 -1.971 -1.599 Max. 2.266 1.710 1.582 1.783 Significance of Differences Set A vs. B, via t-Test, approximate p (two-tailed): 0.29 0.38 0.01 0.50 While only one difference is significant and between the two smallest groups at that, all four are in the same direction. If independence can be assumed despite the involvement of the same experimenter in most settings this pattern alone has a binomial p (two-tailed) of 0.125. Other procedures as well are somewhat suggestive of a time effect as defined here. Thus the logarithmic combination of the four p values leads to an equivalent Chi Square of ~ 15 (df=8), and p ~ 0.05. The running correlations (r) between event numbers and Z, cumulative from No. 1 and from No. 101, respectively, are as follows: No. 1 - 20, -0.3161 No. 101 - 120, -0.2180 No. 1 - 40, -0.0817 No. 101 - 140, 0.0181 No. 1 - 60, -0.0591 No. 101 - 160, 0.1086 No. 1 - 80, 0.0157 No. 101 - 180, 0.1036 No. 1-100, 0.0774 No. 101 - 199, 0.1462 Only three of ten trends are in the direction corresponding to the four differences shown earlier, and none are significant. The A and B group totals are as follows. Events No. 1-199 (August 7, 1998 through April 23, 2005). Mean Z 0.3664 (103) 0.2513 (64) 0.0508 (8) 0.3157 (24) S.D. 1.0150 0.9579 1.7946 1.1081 Var. 1.0302 0.9177 3.2206 1.2279 Min. -1.776 -2.085 -1.971 -1.599 Max. 3.209 2.428 2.688 2.207 Experimenter effects if any, may be confounded by the type of event --an interaction involving Meditation may be processed differently from Violence, etc. For a superficial approach to this issue I examine the patterns of Meditation entries (the most frequent category, with 39 events when counted liberally) in relation to experimenter etc. categories. The outcome is as follows: (Meditation Events) Nelson only Others Nelson with others Others with Nelson Mean Z 0.3240 (9) 0.0463 (20) 0.8723 (3) 0.5200 (7) S.D. 1.2786 0.9454 2.1420 1.3698 Var. 1.6349 0.8938 4.5881 1.8764 Min. -1.707 -2.085 -1.490 -1.324 Max. 2.242 1.479 2.688 2.207 The outcome does not suggest differences among the individuals or the pairings available, at least not in respect to the Meditation events. In conclusion, there is no convincing evidence of differential outcomes attributable to experimenter characteristics as normally understood. On the other hand, additional attention should be paid to the time course of the phenomena seen in the GCP project. Hans W. Wendt