An Experiment to Explore Psi with Paired Quadruplet Associates

Shigeki HAGIO
Kagoshima Keizai University, Japan

ABSTRACT

100 N-N(noun-noun) association frequency tables for 100 stimulus words were made through word association tests with student subjects (N=283). Four reaction words having a low association value (1% to 1.5%) in each table were picked up to make up, so to speak, paired quadruplet associates. Then to decide the association value of the four words within a quadruplet, the 100 items as such were read to new classes (N=621, in total) in a forced-choice method. This was to obtain those items whose reaction words showed a close association value (from 9.9 % to 40 %) within their quadruplet. Thirty-two items were obtained, data for the psi test series. Eighteen subjects, individually tested, selected one out of the four reaction words in every trial to complete a run. They obtained 170.3 hits, the corrected for the associational loads, giving a deviation of +26.3, significant at .05 level (CR=2.5). In two Control Series eighteen subjects for each responded to the same list with no psi task giving a score near chance. With their scores as a baseline for the experiment, the results became statistically marginal. The experiment, however, suggested that psi works in the human associative processes.

Key words : psi in the associative process, word association experiment, low association value , paired quadruplet associates, forced-choice method