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ABX vs. ESP

mcdonalk

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A little over 20 years ago, a colleague and I endeavored to test the effect of CD Stoplight (green paint marker) on the audibility of CD playback. Identical CD's, one treated with CD Stoplight and one without, were used. My colleague would stand in front of the CD transport, blocking my view, with his back to me. He would then switch between CD's and play the same short passage of music, and record my guess as to whether the one or the other CD was being played. After some repetitions, we exchanged roles. This was not exactly an ABX test since the test operator was aware of which CD was being played and recorded the results.
In each case of test subjects, we guessed correctly for 5 turns before randomity apparently set in (we were engineers, not statisticians).
From this test, I concluded that there was indeed an apparent slight difference (whether due to CD Stoplight or the CD pressings) to be detectable until the tedium of listening fatigue with the same passage of music, set in.
Several months ago, I was reading "Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle" (1952) by C. G. Jung. In this monograph, Jung refers to experiments conducted by another scientist at a different institution. These were ESP tests with the subject and object at different locations in space, and in other tests separated by space and time. The results which Jung reported were the same as our CD Stoplight test: several correct identifications before random results ensued. In this case, he similarly attributed the transition to random results as being the result of fatigue due to tedium.
Reading this perked me up and made me wonder, were my colleague and I, decades ago, conducting an audio test, or an ESP test?
 

DVDdoug

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A better test would be to rip the CD and compare the digital data.

we guessed correctly for 5 turns before randomity apparently set in
That's the nature of randomness. ;) "5 heads" in a row is not likely but there is some statistical probability of it happening by chance.

These kinds of things happen all of the time in statistics. If you are gambling you might have a "run of good luck" or a "run of bad luck".

The more trials you do the more likely you are to get a "statistically accurate" result (near 50% correct if there is no real difference.)

It's interesting that you used the word "guess". :)

he similarly attributed the transition to random results as being the result of fatigue due to tedium.

There's always some excuse...
 
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djanszen

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Likelihood of five like tosses in a row aside, given enough time, anything that is possible is inevitable.
 

Blumlein 88

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When I was about in the 6th grade a few friends and I tested each other for ESP. There was some TV show or movie on it. We took our inspiration from it. We without knowing it did a blind test.

Our methodology was using playing cards. A person in one room behind a cardboard screen was to draw a card from the deck and visualize whether it was hearts, clubs, spades or diamonds for 15 seconds. A person in the second room behind a screen wrote down what they thought the person was visualizing. A door connected the two rooms and someone stood in the doorway. They controlled the pace. Keeping the 15 second count and saying next card to both testees.

We sometimes got three right in a row, and maybe even 4 (this has been long ago hard to remember). We didn't know any real statistics, but it was obvious ESP was at best unreliable. We then tried names, pictures of animals, and dice. No highly positive results.
 
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