Retro-priming, priming, and double testing: psi and replication in a test–retest design
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Plain English Summary
This study tackled a deceptively simple question: if someone scores high on a test of 'retro-priming' -- the spooky idea that a picture you haven't seen yet can somehow influence how fast you classify a word right now -- can they do it again? Researcher Thomas Rabeyron ran 162 people through Daryl Bem's backward-priming task, where you sort words before a matching or mismatching image flashes up afterward. The overall result was a dud -- no significant effect. But digging into subgroups turned up hints: students and especially men showed something (men hit a noteworthy correlation of 0.41). So the 28 top scorers were invited back for round two. Here's where it gets really interesting -- and a bit deflating. Not only did those high scorers fail to repeat their success, their scores actually flipped negative. There was a striking negative correlation between sessions, meaning the people who did best the first time did worst the second time. Meanwhile, ordinary forward priming (where you see the picture before the word, the normal way cause-and-effect works) kept humming along just fine with a strong effect. No personality trait or psychological profile could pick out who would be a consistent 'psi star.' This sign-reversal pattern is fascinating because it feeds directly into ongoing debates about why psi effects seem to evaporate on retest -- researchers call this the 'decline effect' -- and whether that vanishing act is itself meaningful or just statistics doing what statistics do.
Actual Paper 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.
Research Notes
Rare test–retest design in the Bem retro-priming literature. The null retest result and sign inversion are relevant to debates about psi decline effects (MPI, CIRTS models) and to the broader Bem replication controversy. Note: catalog ID references 'Savva' but the actual sole author is Thomas Rabeyron.
A test–retest study examined whether high-scoring participants on a retroactive priming task could reliably replicate their performance. In Study 1, 162 participants completed Bem's retro-priming paradigm (classifying words before seeing a congruent or incongruent picture prime). Results were non-significant overall (es=0.11) but post-hoc analyses found effects for students (r=0.17, p < 0.05) and males (r=0.41, p < 0.01). In Study 2, the 28 highest scorers returned; retro-priming results were negative and non-significant (es=−0.25), with a significant negative correlation between sessions (r=−0.46, p < 0.05). Forward priming remained robust (es=0.63). No psychological profile distinguished consistently high scorers.
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Cites
- Why Psychologists Must Change the Way They Analyze Their Data: The Case of Psi — Wagenmakers, Eric-Jan (2011)
- Predictive Physiological Anticipation Preceding Seemingly Unpredictable Stimuli: A Meta-Analysis — Mossbridge, Julia (2012)
- The Capricious, Actively Evasive, Unsustainable Nature of Psi: A Summary and Hypotheses — Kennedy, J.E (2003)
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📋 Cite this paper
Rabeyron, Thomas (2014). Retro-priming, priming, and double testing: psi and replication in a test–retest design. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00154
@article{savva_2014_retro_priming,
title = {Retro-priming, priming, and double testing: psi and replication in a test–retest design},
author = {Rabeyron, Thomas},
year = {2014},
journal = {Frontiers in Human Neuroscience},
doi = {10.3389/fnhum.2014.00154},
}