February 2011

Why do wolves howl?

A wolf born embraced by his mother's fur wolf is fed by the herd and does nothing but play with his brothers to 3 months, then fill important roles in their society, in hunting and in the hierarchy of the same .

become Cubs after 3 months under the tutelage of his strict mother and father sacrificed are educated and become stronger, learn the art of Lobos, and are happy ...

at one year and a half as the Lobos are titled full-fledged, should provide food for his flock, especially the smaller ones and serve the Alpha, the most respected and strong wolf pack, a small cost of living with his family and share the joy with her litter to exist.

But there comes a moment in the life of every wolf to be separated and embark on a mission of extreme solitude in search of their own, other wolves have also been away from his pack to form a new, in a new place ...

say the day that the new part of her mother wolf licks his cheek and is preparing a last meal for the long journey. His father accompanies him instead to the ends of the territory, without mentioning a single grunt, and when your child is already far out of sight, at that time where only the smell used to feel still at his side, hard to Howl your child will listen ...

A strange habit, howl, and really bad the question should be something like:

- What kind of Wolves howl?

- Only two types, parents who miss the Son and the Son he misses Lone parents.

ESP in a journal of the APA reported

Bem, DJ (In press). Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous retroactive Influence on Cognition and Affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology . [ doi] [pdf ]

Note. This journal is published by the Association of Psychology and world's largest by volume is 100. It is not far from a magazine who knows where.

Summary:

The term psi denotes Anomalous Process of information or energy transfer unexplained That Are Currently in Terms of Known physical or biological mechanisms. Two variants of psi Are precognition (conscious cognitive awareness) and premonition (affective apprehension) of a future event that could not otherwise be anticipated through any known inferential process. Precognition and premonition are themselves special cases of a more general phenomenon: the anomalous retroactive influence of some future event on an individual's current responses, whether those responses are conscious or nonconscious, cognitive or affective. This article reports 9 experiments, involving more than 1,000 participants, that test for retroactive influence by “time-reversing” well-established psychological effects so that the individual's responses are obtained before the putatively causal stimulus events occur. Data are presented for 4 time-reversed effects: precognitive approach to erotic stimuli and precognitive avoidance of negative stimuli; retroactive priming; retroactive habituation; and retroactive facilitation of recall. The mean effect size (d) in psi performance across all 9 experiments was 0.22, and all but one of the experiments yielded statistically significant results. The individual-difference variable of stimulus seeking, a component of extraversion, was significantly correlated with psi performance in 5 of the experiments, with participants who scored above the midpoint on a scale of stimulus seeking achieving a mean effect size of 0.43. Skepticism about psi, issues of replication, and theories of psi are also discussed.

Ejemplo de experimento:

Experiment 1: Precognitive Detection of Erotic Stimuli

[...]

One hundred Cornell undergraduates, 50 women and 50 men, were recruited for this experiment using the Psychology Department’s automated online sign-up system. They either received one point of experimental credit in a psychology course offering that option or were paid $5 for their participation. Both the recruiting announcement and the introductory explanation given to participants upon entering the laboratory informed them that

this is an experiment that tests for ESP [percepción extrasensorial]. It takes about 20 minutes and is run completely by computer. First you will answer a couple of brief questions. Then, on each trial of the experiment, pictures of two curtains will appear on the screen side by side. One of them has a picture behind it; the other has a blank wall behind it. Your task is to click on the curtain that you feel has the picture behind it. The curtain will then open, permitting you to see if you selected the correct curtain. There will be 36 trials in all. Several of the pictures contain explicit erotic images (e.g., couples engaged in nonviolent but explicit consensual sexual acts). If you object to seeing such images, you should not participate in this experiment.
[...]

Each session of the experiment included both erotic and nonerotic pictures randomly intermixed, and the main psi hypothesis was that participants would be able to identify the position of the hidden erotic picture significantly more often than chance (50%). The hit rate on erotic trials can also be compared with the hit rates on the nonerotic trials to test whether there is something unique about erotic content in addition to its positive valence and high arousal value.

[...]

Across all 100 sessions, participants correctly identified the future position of the erotic pictures significantly more frequently than the 50% hit rate expected by chance: 53.1%, t (99) = 2.51, p = .01, d = 0.25. In contrast, their hit rate on the nonerotic pictures did not differ significantly from chance: 49.8%, t (99) = -0.15, p = .56. This was true across all types of nonerotic pictures: neutral pictures, 49.6%; negative pictures, 51.3%; positive pictures, 49.4%, and romantic But nonerotic pictures, 50.2%. (All t values \u200b\u200bt diff (99) = 1.85, p = .031, d = 0.19. Because Were erotic and nonerotic trials randomly interspersed in the trial sequence, difference Also this significativa Server to rule out The Possibility That the hit rate significativa erotic pictures on WAS INADEQUATE an artifact of randomization of Their left / right positions.

As you understand, the article, in press, I have already generated a huge reaction . In fact it has secured discussion between frequentist and Bayesian statistical get to the pages of New York Times .

My opinion? Ah, if I had time now to have opinions ... But I would love to give news about this series of experiments.