A Preregistered Multi-Lab Replication of Maier et al. (2014, Exp. 4) Testing Retroactive Avoidance
📄 Original study ↗📌 Appears in:
Plain English Summary
Can people unconsciously dodge unpleasant images before they appear? Five European labs teamed up with pre-registered methods — no wiggle room for fudging. Over 2,000 participants made quick choices while a quantum random number generator picked nasty or neutral pictures. The verdict? A clear no. Bayesian analysis (a method weighing evidence for versus against a claim) found moderate-to-strong evidence against retroactive avoidance, with an effect size of essentially zero. Researchers did spot curious wave-like time patterns inspired by Generalized Quantum Theory, but that was entirely after-the-fact — more "huh, interesting" than "case closed." The best-designed null result in the precognition debate so far.
Research Notes
The only high-powered, preregistered replication using a fast-thinking protocol in the precognition/retroactive avoidance literature. Key evidence for the Bem Feeling the Future debate — a well-designed null result from sympathetic researchers. Authors' exploratory GQT-based temporal analyses are theoretically novel but entirely post hoc.
Preregistered, multi-lab replication of Maier et al. (2014, Exp. 4) testing retroactive avoidance — unconscious anticipatory avoidance of randomly selected future aversive stimuli. Across five labs in Germany, Italy, Russia, France, and Sweden (N=2,004), participants completed 60 binary key-press trials with quantum-based random stimulus selection and masked picture presentation. Sequential Bayesian analysis yielded BF01=4.38, moderate evidence against retroactive avoidance. Wider priors produced BF01>30. Meta-analytic effect size across labs was ES=0.008 (p=.76) with negligible heterogeneity. Exploratory temporal analyses combining original and replication data (N=2,328) found non-random oscillations in the sequential BF curve, consistent with Generalized Quantum Theory predictions.
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Replication Of
Cites
- Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect — Bem, Daryl J (2011)
- Feeling the Future: A Meta-Analysis of 90 Experiments on the Anomalous Anticipation of Random Future Events — Bem, Daryl J (2015)
- Correcting the Past: Failures to Replicate Psi — Galak, Jeff (2012)
- Failing the Future: Three Unsuccessful Attempts to Replicate Bem's 'Retroactive Facilitation of Recall' Effect — Ritchie, Stuart J (2012)
- Why Psychologists Must Change the Way They Analyze Their Data: The Case of Psi — Wagenmakers, Eric-Jan (2011)
- A Bayes Factor Meta-Analysis of Bem's ESP Claim — Rouder, Jeffrey N (2011)
- Must Psychologists Change the Way They Analyze Their Data? — Bem, Daryl J (2011)
- Too Good to Be True: Publication Bias in Two Prominent Studies from Experimental Psychology — Francis, Gregory (2012)
- False-Positive Psychology: Undisclosed Flexibility in Data Collection and Analysis Allows Presenting Anything as Significant — Simmons, Joseph P (2011)
- "Future Telling": A Meta-Analysis of Forced-Choice Precognition Experiments, 1935-1987 — Honorton, Charles (1989)
Same Research Program
Companion
- Evidence for Anomalistic Correlations Between Human Behavior and a Random Event Generator: Result of an Independent Replication of a Micro-PK Experiment — Walach, Harald (2020)
- Raising the value of research studies in psychological science by increasing the credibility of research reports: the transparent Psi project — Kekecs, Zoltan (2023)
Also by these authors
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📋 Cite this paper
Maier, Markus A, Buechner, Vanessa L, Dechamps, Moritz C, Pflitsch, Markus, Kurzrock, Walter, Tressoldi, Patrizio, Rabeyron, Thomas, Cardeña, Etzel, Marcusson-Clavertz, David, Martsinkovskaja, Tatiana (2020). A Preregistered Multi-Lab Replication of Maier et al. (2014, Exp. 4) Testing Retroactive Avoidance. PLOS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0238373
@article{maier_2020_preregistered,
title = {A Preregistered Multi-Lab Replication of Maier et al. (2014, Exp. 4) Testing Retroactive Avoidance},
author = {Maier, Markus A and Buechner, Vanessa L and Dechamps, Moritz C and Pflitsch, Markus and Kurzrock, Walter and Tressoldi, Patrizio and Rabeyron, Thomas and Cardeña, Etzel and Marcusson-Clavertz, David and Martsinkovskaja, Tatiana},
year = {2020},
journal = {PLOS ONE},
doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0238373},
}