Feeling the Future Again: Retroactive Avoidance of Negative Stimuli
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Plain English Summary
Can people unconsciously dodge bad experiences that haven't happened yet? A European team ran seven controlled experiments where people pressed keys, then were shown unpleasant images tied to one choice. Four studies found people slightly avoided the key linked to future nastiness. Pooling nearly 3,000 participants, the effect was small but statistically solid, with Bayesian analysis (a method for weighing evidence) at nearly 300-to-1 favoring something real. This work began before the researchers even knew about Bem's famous precognition experiments, making it a genuinely independent replication of one of parapsychology's most controversial claims.
Abstract
During the past decades, several theories have been proposed that relate quantum mechanics to information processing in the human mind. These theories predict that the arrow of time has no direction during unconscious processing states. Across 7 experiments, we tested whether masked negative stimuli presented in the future lead to an unconscious avoidance reaction in the present. Response registration took place about 500 milliseconds before stimulus onset. In the majority of the studies the predicted retroactive influence was found. On average, participants were able to unconsciously avoid negative future outcomes (mean ES = 0.07; Combined Bayes factor = 293). These results are in line with similar precognitive avoidance effects recently reported by Daryl Bem in 2011 (Experiment 2). The reported findings are discussed with regard to the proposed quantum model of the mind. We also highlight the limitations of our research.
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Replication Of
Cites
- Why Psychologists Must Change the Way They Analyze Their Data: The Case of Psi — Wagenmakers, Eric-Jan (2011)
- Correcting the Past: Failures to Replicate Psi — Galak, Jeff (2012)
- Failing the Future: Three Unsuccessful Attempts to Replicate Bem's 'Retroactive Facilitation of Recall' Effect — Ritchie, Stuart J (2012)
- Predictive Physiological Anticipation Preceding Seemingly Unpredictable Stimuli: A Meta-Analysis — Mossbridge, Julia (2012)
- A Bayes Factor Meta-Analysis of Bem's ESP Claim — Rouder, Jeffrey N (2011)
- "Future Telling": A Meta-Analysis of Forced-Choice Precognition Experiments, 1935-1987 — Honorton, Charles (1989)
- Consciousness and the Double-Slit Interference Pattern: Six Experiments — Radin, Dean (2012)
- False-Positive Psychology: Undisclosed Flexibility in Data Collection and Analysis Allows Presenting Anything as Significant — Simmons, Joseph P (2011)
- Must Psychologists Change the Way They Analyze Their Data? — Bem, Daryl J (2011)
Same Research Program
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📋 Cite this paper
Maier, Markus A, Büchner, Vanessa L, Kuhbandner, Christof, Pflitsch, Markus, Fernández-Capo, Maria, Gámiz-Sanfeliu, Maria (2014). Feeling the Future Again: Retroactive Avoidance of Negative Stimuli. Journal of Consciousness Studies.
@article{maier_2014_no_precognition,
title = {Feeling the Future Again: Retroactive Avoidance of Negative Stimuli},
author = {Maier, Markus A and Büchner, Vanessa L and Kuhbandner, Christof and Pflitsch, Markus and Fernández-Capo, Maria and Gámiz-Sanfeliu, Maria},
year = {2014},
journal = {Journal of Consciousness Studies},
}