Experimenter Effects and the Remote Detection of Staring
📄 Original study📌 Appears in:
Plain English Summary
Can you feel someone staring at you from another room? A skeptic (Wiseman) and a believer (Schlitz) tested this together — same lab, same equipment, same procedures, same volunteers. They measured skin conductivity (basically how much your palms sweat) while a sender stared at participants through closed-circuit TV or looked away. The results were wild: Schlitz's participants showed a real physical response to being stared at. Wiseman's showed nothing. Same everything, different outcomes depending on who ran it. This is one of the most cited demonstrations of "experimenter effects" — where whoever runs a study somehow influences results. It remains unsolved and raises deep questions about what replication means in science.
Actual Paper Abstract
Each author recently attempted to replicate studies in which participants were asked to psychically detect an unseen gaze. RW's studies failed to find any significant effects whilst MS's study obtained positive findings. The authors then agreed to carry out the joint study described in this paper, in the hope of determining why they had originally obtained such different results. This joint study involved both MS and RW carrying out separate experiments, but running them in the same location, using the same equipment/procedures and drawing participants from the same subject pool. The studies involved placing experimenter and participant in separate rooms linked by a one way closed circuit television system. This allowed the experimenter to see the participant, but not vice versa. The experimental sessions were divided into two sets of randomly ordered trials. During 'stare' trials the experimenter directed his/her attention towards the participant; during 'non-stare' trials the experimenter directed this attention away from the participant. The participants' electrodermal activity (EDA) was continuously recorded throughout each session. Results revealed that the EDA of RW's participants was not significantly different during 'stare' and 'non-stare' trials. In contrast, the EDA of MS's participants was significantly higher in 'stare' than 'non-stare' trials. The paper discusses the likelihood of different interpretations of this effect and urges other psi proponents and skeptics to run similar joint studies.
Research Notes
One of the most cited studies in the experimenter-effect debate. The finding that protocol-identical experiments yield different results depending on who runs them remains unresolved and challenges conventional replication frameworks. Led directly to the Wiseman & Schlitz 2006 follow-up. Central to Controversy #10 (meta-debate on whether psi research is fundamentally sound).
A skeptic (Wiseman) and a proponent (Schlitz) each ran 16 sessions of a remote staring detection experiment at the same lab, using identical equipment, procedures, and participant pool. Receivers’ electrodermal activity (EDA) was recorded during randomly ordered 30-second stare and non-stare trials while the sender/experimenter viewed them via closed-circuit TV from 20 meters away. Wiseman’s receivers showed no significant difference (Wilcoxon z = −0.44, p = 0.64), while Schlitz’s showed significantly higher EDA during stare trials (z = −2.02, p = 0.04). The between-experimenter comparison was not significant (t = 1.39, p = 0.17). This dramatic divergence despite identical methodology is a landmark demonstration of experimenter effects in psi research.
Related Papers
Extended By
Cited By
- Nonlocality, Intention, and Observer Effects in Healing Studies: Laying a Foundation for the Future — Schwartz, Stephan A (2010)
- The Sense of Being Stared At: A Preliminary Meta-Analysis — Radin, Dean I (2005)
- Distant intentionality and the feeling of being stared at: Two meta-analyses — Schmidt, Stefan (2004)
- Paranormal psychic believers and skeptics: a large-scale test of the cognitive differences hypothesis — Gray, Stephen J (2016)
- Why Psychologists Must Change the Way They Analyze Their Data: The Case of Psi — Wagenmakers, Eric-Jan (2011)
- Decline Effects: Types, Mechanisms, and Personal Reflections — Protzko, John (2017)
- Entertaining Without Endorsing: The Case for the Scientific Investigation of Anomalous Cognition — Schooler, Jonathan W (2018)
- The Efficacy of "Distant Healing": A Systematic Review of Randomized Trials — Astin, John A (2000)
Companion
- The Sense of Being Stared At, Part 1: Is It Real or Illusory? — Sheldrake, Rupert (2005)
- The Sense of Being Stared At, Part 2: Its Implications for Theories of Vision — Sheldrake, Rupert (2005)
- Fundamentally Misunderstanding Visual Perception: Adults’ Belief in Visual Emissions — Winer, Gerald A (2002)
Also by these authors
More in Telepathy
Telecommunication Telepathy: A Meta-Analysis
Rethinking Communication and Consciousness: Lessons from The Telepathy Tapes Podcast
Taking the Mindfield Literally: Discovering Minds by Assuming Competence Among Nonspeakers
Who's Calling? Evaluating the Accuracy of Guessing Who Is on the Phone
A Comparison of Four New Automated Telephone Telepathy Tests
📋 Cite this paper
Wiseman, Richard, Schlitz, Marilyn J (1997). Experimenter Effects and the Remote Detection of Staring. Journal of Parapsychology.
@article{wiseman_schlitz_1997_experimenter_staring,
title = {Experimenter Effects and the Remote Detection of Staring},
author = {Wiseman, Richard and Schlitz, Marilyn J},
year = {1997},
journal = {Journal of Parapsychology},
}