Observer Effects on Quantum Randomness: Testing Micro-Psychokinetic Effects of Smokers on Addiction-Related Stimuli
📄 Original study ↗📌 Appears in:
Plain English Summary
Can your cravings bend reality? Researchers tested whether smokers' unconscious desires could nudge a quantum random number generator to show fewer cigarette pictures. Study one found strikingly strong evidence they could — smokers saw fewer cigarette images than chance predicted. Non-smokers? Nothing. But the pre-registered replication with more participants found the effect had vanished. Combined data revealed a rise-then-fade pattern only in smokers. The authors invoke the Model of Pragmatic Information to explain why micro-PK effects (mind-over-matter at tiny scales) might systematically disappear when you try to pin them down. Skeptics would note that pattern looks a lot like the first result simply being a fluke.
Research Notes
Critical replication failure paper in micro-PK literature. Demonstrates the elusive decline effect pattern that MPI predicts but cannot distinguish from null results. Connects to PEAR replication failures and ongoing debates about whether micro-PK is inherently unreplicable or non-existent. Unconscious desire manipulation was theoretically innovative. Cites Bösch et al. 2006 meta-analysis and Radin & Nelson work extensively.
Tested whether unconscious desires influence quantum randomness using smokers' cigarette addiction as motivated observation. Participants viewed 400 pictures selected by a quantum RNG (Quantis): smoking-related or neutral images. Study 1 (N=254) found strong evidence for micro-Pk in smokers (BF=66.06), with fewer cigarette pictures than chance (M=196.7). Non-smokers showed null results. Study 2, a pre-registered replication (N=395), failed to reproduce the effect (BF=11.07 for H0). Combined analysis revealed an appearance-then-decline pattern in smokers only, resembling dampened harmonic oscillation. Authors extend von Lucadou's Model of Pragmatic Information to explain systematic decline.
Links
Related Papers
Cites
Companion
Also by these authors
More in Psychokinesis
Observer Influence on Quantum Interference: Testing the von Neumann-Wigner Consciousness-Collapse Theory
New Year's Eve as a Case Study in Experimental Metaphysics: Exploring Global Consciousness in Random Physical Systems
Anomalous Entropic Effects in Physical Systems Associated with Collective Consciousness
Psychophysical Interactions with Electrical Plasma: Three Exploratory Experiments
Psychophysical Effects on an Interference Pattern in a Double-Slit Optical System: An Exploratory Analysis of Variance
📋 Cite this paper
Maier, Markus A, Dechamps, Moritz C (2018). Observer Effects on Quantum Randomness: Testing Micro-Psychokinetic Effects of Smokers on Addiction-Related Stimuli. Journal of Scientific Exploration. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.31275/2018.1250
@article{maier_dechamps_2018_smoker_micro_pk,
title = {Observer Effects on Quantum Randomness: Testing Micro-Psychokinetic Effects of Smokers on Addiction-Related Stimuli},
author = {Maier, Markus A and Dechamps, Moritz C},
year = {2018},
journal = {Journal of Scientific Exploration},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.31275/2018.1250},
}