Whatever you're about to say didn't make me less confused. - by Tonamel
jtr7 on 16/11/2010 at 06:34
If I can remember enough to narrow the search down, I'd heard some study was done where test subjects had electrodes placed on their skin with a gentle current running through to measure changes in voltage that would tell of changes in the pH of the skin as part of a fear response. If I remember correctly, the subjects sat at computers to complete some arbitrary task, but were not told they were about to be startled. Five seconds before they were to be startled, their skin showed pH changes consistent with the beginning of the fear response, and I have not heard if the mystery of the subconscious pre-awareness was solved scientifically.
Koki on 16/11/2010 at 07:07
Quote Posted by Kolya
I also have slight foresight capabilities. I kid you not.
I see what you did there.
zombe on 16/11/2010 at 07:21
Quote:
I purposely waited until I thought there was a critical mass that wasn't a statistical fluke.
O_o ... this is suspicious. There is a reason why you must keep the sample count constant for the duration of test! Sounds like he might have violated that => resulting invalid statistical significance assessment (aka. the result might be garbage).
Either way - unlikely (imho) to merit actually reading that paper. Needs more successful replications.
Trance on 16/11/2010 at 12:31
There's a comment exchange in the OP's article that explains what he meant by that. It wasn't that he simply waited until it was statistically significant -- apparently he has 9 separate data sets and 8 of those are statistically significant. The comments can explain it better.
It's the comment(s) titled "Valid Statistical Significance?".
zombe on 16/11/2010 at 14:15
Ah ... did not read the comments. Yeah, in hindsight - no way such a blunder would not be noticed. Makes my suspecting mind wonder where the error is.
Yakoob on 16/11/2010 at 15:09
see, zombe, if you at least planned on reading their comments you would have already knew the statistical significance stuff at least 5 minutes before actually reading them! hasn't this study taught you anything?
Muzman on 17/11/2010 at 02:43
Quote Posted by jtr7
I'd heard some study was done where test subjects had electrodes placed on their skin with a gentle current running through to measure changes in voltage that would tell of changes in the pH of the skin as part of a fear response. If I remember correctly, the subjects sat at computers to complete some arbitrary task, but were not told they were about to be startled. Five seconds before they were to be startled, their skin showed pH changes consistent with the beginning of the fear response, and I have not heard if the mystery of the subconscious pre-awareness was solved scientifically.
I found a few mentions of things like that on pubmed and googlescholar. I can't read the studies/haven't tried yet, but all the ones I found expliciitly state that it was a test of conditioned fear response. That's the particular choice of words. Presuming it's the same tests (and it sounds like it) I would guess that they had become used to being startled previously, were anticipating it and perhaps in some cases were testing whether it mattered if they were told different before the test.
Azaran on 17/11/2010 at 03:16
Quote Posted by Muzman
I found a few mentions of things like that on pubmed and googlescholar. I can't read the studies/haven't tried yet, but all the ones I found expliciitly state that it was a test of conditioned fear response. That's the particular choice of words. Presuming it's the same tests (and it sounds like it) I would guess that they had become used to being startled previously, were anticipating it and perhaps in some cases were testing whether it mattered if they were told different before the test.
I saw one a few years ago. In some university, I don't recall which, they had people hooked up to eeg's and heart monitors, sit in front of a screen and they would flash random pictures every few seconds. Most of the pictures were pretty ordinary (landscapes, etc), but occasionally they showed some disturbing ones (mutilated bodies, violent scenes, autopsy photos, etc). They discovered that an initial fear response was detected in the subject's body right before one of those photos was shown, 1-2 seconds prior, and this in every subject tested, as if the body was knowingly preparing for the shock that was to come. From what I recall, the rate at which they showed the pictures was completely random, so this may rule out any possibility of the person expecting to see those pictures.
SD on 17/11/2010 at 16:45
Shouldn't everything that hasn't happened yet be theoretically predictable? If I have a pool table and I strike a cue ball along a fixed path at a fixed velocity into another ball, then so long as I have perfect knowledge about what environmental conditions are acting upon the balls, I can work out exactly where that second ball is going to end up. That's all that the universe, atoms and molecules and particles, is; billiard balls bouncing into each other.
Harvester on 17/11/2010 at 17:14
guys this totally means that God exists mmmkay go stand in line to be baptized
