Validity Of Rupert

Critiques from Marks and Colwell

Discuss about the Psychic Staring Effect for Pseudo-Randomization.

Several arguments have arisen to determine the validity of Rupert’s experiment on a person’s ability to detect when he or she is being stared at from behind without seeing.  David Marks and John Colwell, in their article “The Psychic Starring Effect: An Artifact of Pseudo Randomization” (September/ October 2000. Pg 41), in the Skeptical Inquirer, analyze this experiment and attempt to show whether Sheldrake’s theory of perception could be true or it is just an illusion. They claim that individuals are not able to see images of things that are inside their brains. According to them, the implications of Sheldrake’s hypothetical process of outward projection could be that by the mind reaching out and touching what an individual looks at; the individual may be able to directly affect what he or she looks. They further say that the results from of Sheldrake’s experiments were an artifact brought about by one of the procedures of randomization. They added that the use of random sequences leads to people detecting starring at no better than chance rates. In response to these criticisms, Sheldrake conducted fresh experiments on the starring phenomenon encouraging participation of school children and other members of the public management.

However, these experiments could not be relied on to give prudent results on this phenomenon due to the fact that he used unsuitable consequences in his research, as Mark and Coldwell claimed. From real-life experience, when an individual anticipates to be looked at or stared at, or when someone is in a place where there are people behind him or her, it is undeniable that at some point, someone will be staring at the person, thus it is normal to have a feeling of being stared at. But not necessarily do the feelings of being starred at materialize into actually being looked at. Some feelings do deceive. Therefore, fully relying on the ability to detect when someone is being starred at from behind by the person’s feelings of the same could be inappropriate, unless some predetermining conditions existed. As mentioned in the Skeptical Inquirer, Sheldrake’s hypothesis follows the same pattern like that of guessing and gambling. Where the results are purely dependent on chances and cannot be an ascertained to be the truth due to the fewer long runs and numerous alterations associated with the guessing patterns. Sheldrake’s experiment on starring phenomenon could be considered to be biased as it only depended on predetermined expected results and conditions, where only feelings of being starred at were considered to materialize to being looked at. Other factors that may have contributed towards the feeling or that could make the person to be looked at were ignored. For instance, it is so expected for a celebrity to draw people’s attention and therefore be looked at. Therefore, relying on the celebrity person’s feelings of being looked at to make conclusions that a person could tell through sensations that he or she is being starred at behind his or her back, could be so misleading. In reality, under closed conditions, for instance when the person does not anticipate to be looked at or where the person has not seen anyone around or close to him or her that could look at him or her, the person will not develop the feeling of being looked at. Therefore, Sheldrake could be said to have relied on unbiased conditions that create pattern learning to provide feedback.

Unsuitable consequences in Sheldrake's research

Sheldrake’s claims that “we can tell when someone is staring at us” were further dismissed by two recent articles in the Skeptical Inquirer purporting that this feeling is nothing but an illusion. As indicated in (Baker, 2000, pg. 40), the hypothesis that people have an unexplained ability to detect stares can be viewed to be nothing more than superstition or to result from a response to subtle signals from the environment management.

Baker demonstrated his claims by testing the ability to detect unseen stares with people who were busy either watching television, eating, drinking, working at computer terminals or reading in the library. He positioned himself behind without obstructing them and stared at them. After which he introduced himself and requested them to fill in a response sheet. From the responses, he observed that people the sensation of being stared at was not present in people engrossed in an activity. This further affirms that the sensation of being stared at is dependent on environmental signals. Even though two people responded to be sense that they were being starred at, their responses being one of them claiming that she was constantly being spied on and the other claiming to have extrasensory ability, these responses cannot be relied on since they suggest that sensitivity of people with paranoid tendencies and those who claim to have extrasensory abilities is more than others, which in reality is not true.

To further ascertain his observations, Baker conducted a second experiment where he and a student starred at individuals from far behind at random intervals for one minute, five lookings per individual stared.  They were then requested to guess when they thought they were being looked at. From their responses, it was observed that their guesses were no better than chances.

Sheldrake responded to the differences in Baker observations on the sensation of being stared at from his observations by citing several relevant procedural differences as viewed on the Web site (www.sheldrake.org). These differences included:

1. The experiments’ designs were different; In Sheldrake’s experiment, a series of 20 trials had more or equal number of control and looking trials, whereas Baker applied 15 controls and only 5 looking one-minute periods. Baker only allowed five guesses per person as when they were being looked at. Sheldrake claims that by using random guesses, the probability of misses would be three times more than hits.
2. Experiment duration: Sheldrake’s experiment lasted for just 10 seconds per trial while Baker’s lasted for 60 seconds. He claims that the rate of correct guesses could increase when the subjects were asked to guess quickly, without having to take much time to think of their responses. Therefore, he claimed that time affected the results.
3. Distraction to subjects: there were some distracters to subjects in Baker’s experiments. These included a pair of unexplained numbers on each specimen score sheet, contradictory instructions for instance, the instructions indicated that the subjects would be stared at five times for two minutes each while he told the subjects that there would be a five one-minute starring periods, and asking the respondents to compare their guesses with their responses in other periods. He claims that this interfered with the results as the subjects were allowed to alter their responses as they make the comparisons.

An analysis of these differences would show that they were not substantial enough to bring about the differences in the observations. If sensations detected unseen starring, then even in a one minute 10 starings, with the subject allowed to make ten guesses as to when he or she thought he was being starred, the results would be the same as those proposed by Sheldrake. These differences highlighted by Sheldrake further show that his results depended on guess patterns and chances, such that with an increase in the trial duration, the subjects would lose the guessing pattern thus not able to provide consistent results. Moreover, the ability to sense hidden stares should not be limited to the number of times of duration that the starring takes place. If it truly exists, then even a one-minute hidden starring is enough to detect it. Therefore, there should be no predetermined consistent pattern of starring to get positive results.

Sheldrake requires following his experiment instructions and procedures strictly in terms of the number of trials and duration of starring as well as randomization of guesses. He demands that during the observation, the starers and the starerees should be taking turns in starring by working in pairs. When this is done in the real world, the results, however in support of the sensation of unseen stares, cannot be relied on since it leads to the creation of a pattern that influences the guessing. Moreover, experimenting with a larger population, as he suggests, will tend to bring about environmental signals that would influence the results further, unlike in the case of a closed environment.

Despite the observations made by both Baker and Collwel regarding Sheldrake’s experiments on the ability of a person to sense unseen staring, no substantial grounds to accept or dismiss these claims could be identified from their experiments. This could be attributed to their prior assumption that the ability to detect unseen starring must be illusionary. In their experiments, both of them obtained unexpected positive results that they dismissed with question-begging arguments. This showed that they had pre-destined expected results from their experiments.  Failing to mention a large body of published data as was done by Sheldrake also went against their conclusions making their claims misleading and ill-formed.

Conclusion

Based on Sheldrake’s arguments and experiments, it could be noticed that somehow, the sense of detecting unseen starring is somehow present in some instances, but it is dependent on environmental signals or pre-information about the possibility of being starred at. Therefore, his arguments cannot be completely dismissed to be illusionary as Baker and Mark and Collwel claim.

Bakers. Can we tell when someone is staring at us? Skeptical Inquirer. 24(2): 34-40.2000

Marks & Colwell. The psychic staring effect: An artifact of pseudo-randomization. Skeptical Inquirer (September/ October 24(5): 41.2000

Sheldrake. Seven experiments that could change the world. London: Fourth Estate. 1994. Print