Graduate Program
Clinical Psychology
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Semester of Degree Completion
2011
Thesis Director
Russell Gruber
Thesis Committee Member
Anu Sharma
Thesis Committee Member
Ronan Bernas
Abstract
This study focuses on the possible role of mental telepathy in perceiving the identity of telephone callers before the caller is known through the normal senses. Many people report that this phenomenon occurs frequently in their day-to-day lives prompting controlled laboratory experimentation. The data was collected during the summer of 2010. One of the most important goals in determining the existence of mental telepathy involves the replication of different modes of research in different laboratory settings. This research attempts to replicate data Rupert Sheldrake collected during the beginning part of this century, in which he reported significant findings from studies of telephone telepathy. For the current study, four groups consisting of five participants each were recruited by the researcher. For each group, a receiver (the participant receiving calls) was selected by the participants, with the four remaining participants acting as telephone callers or senders. The researcher accompanied the receiver to a distant location while a research assistant remained with the four remaining callers. A caller was randomly selected and the receiver was then asked to guess which sender they felt was calling on each trial. Each group participated in a session per week for a total of five sessions with each session consisting of ten trials. By chance we would expect a 25 % hit rate. Through the course of 200 trials, 57 hits were obtained for a 28.5 % hit rate. Although not significant, the results were in the predicted direction. It was noted that the group with the lowest belief scores obtained the lowest hit rate(20 percent) while the others scored hits rates of 28 percent, 30 percent, and 38 percent. It was concluded that future research should take into consideration the possibility that groups or receivers with low belief scores might be expected to score in opposite direction than those with high belief scores canceling out significant effects.
Recommended Citation
Harvey, Clint, "Knowing whose [sic] calling: Telephone telepathy" (2011). Masters Theses. 884.
https://thekeep.eiu.edu/theses/884
