Vision From Feeling

A simple and quick study with induced information. Improvements on the procedure were made gradually. The results obtained with each specific procedure are tabulated separately. Although these study procedures are not good enough I will use Table I. Range of Number of Successes Attributable to Random Chance, for Preliminary Testing, from the statistical tables to analyze the results and keep improving the procedures successively. All studies on this page were done May 17 2009.

First study procedure
Procedure: A friend sits in a chair, I sit in a chair 2 to 3 feet behind him and am facing his back. There is a plastic screen between us. The screen allows at most only a slight visibility of the outline of a person depending on the light. During this test there appears to be no visibility through the screen and his arms and hands would not have been visible anyway. I only see the back of his head. My friend chooses at random whether to make a fist with his left hand, or with his right hand, or with no hands, one out of three options. Once he has made a choice he keeps the fist or no fist and must keep his arms, head and body still at all times. I look at him from behind and try to feel the answer.

Run	My answer	Right answer	Accuracy
1	Left fist	Left fist	Correct

Notes: My logic wanted me to guess "right fist" for some reason but I do not let logic decide and I feel into him and I feel and therefore see contracted muscles of the left lower arm. I double-check with my "vision from feeling" and conclude on the answer.
1/3 chance, 1 run: N/A this is where I bring a statistical analysis from the statistical tables

Second study procedure
Changes in procedure: now he can choose left, right, none, or both, for a total of four options. Also a change is that I close my eyes while he is choosing and while he gets ready, and after he has been settled for a few seconds he will tell me and I open my eyes. That way I would not receive any clues from the time when he chooses which option or gets settled.

Run	My answer	Right answer	Accuracy
1	Right fist	Right fist	Correct
2	Both	Both	Correct
3	Left fist	No fist	Incorrect
4	Right fist	Right fist	Correct

Notes: Run 1: I strongly felt the right fist at the hand, this time not the arm. Perhaps because he is right-handed and his left hand is not as strong and involves the arm muscles more.
Run 2: I feel that both hands feel the same, so I know that it is either both or neither. I feel that both hands are closed although this time I do not feel as much of muscle contraction or force, perhaps because both feel the same, so I conclude that both are closed.
Note: The time I take to form an answer is less than five seconds. And to form my answer and report the answer is less than ten seconds total. I only see his neck and back of the head and no shoulders.
1/4 chance, 4 runs: N/A

Third study procedure
The screen was raised higher so that I could only see the upper half of the back of the head. It seemed that some of my answers came with my eyes closed so I will try a blindfolded test later on. Most often the answers come right away.

Run	My answer	Right answer	Accuracy
1	Left fist	Left fist	Correct
2	Right fist	Left fist	Incorrect
3	Left fist	Right fist	Incorrect

1/4 chance, 3 runs: N/A

Conclusions: These three very preliminary studies on induced information, using the information of a hand contracted in a fist, did of course not follow an adequate procedure. For instance it could be that contracting a hand translates a subtly visible contraction of neck muscles that provides subconscious clues. I also received feedback after each run, something which I have been told is also not proper test procedure. There was no randomizer used. But other than that, the idea of using induced information is a very good one.

First simple study with induced information - icecubes

For the second part of the first simple study on induced information I had my friend put his hand in a bowl of icecubes. I would then attempt to feel from a distance which of the hands were in ice. The procedure is the same as above with the fists: He sits 2 to 3 feet from me, I am facing his back and a plastic screen covers all of his body except for the back of his head. Neck and shoulders are not visible. He will put the left hand, right hand, or both hands into the ice. The "no hands" option is not used because there is a sound from putting hands in the ice and the no sound would be a give-away. He will decide which hand or both hands and after being settled for a few seconds he lets me know he is ready and I can open my eyes and try to feel which of the hand or hands are in ice.

Run	My answer	Right answer	Accuracy
1	Right hand	Right hand	Correct
2	Left hand	Left hand	Correct
3	Both hands	Both hands	Correct
4	Right hand	Right hand	Correct

Notes: Run 1: It felt like nerves that are swelling and sharp tingling and dark blue throughout the fingertips of the right hand and no such thing in the left hand.
Run 3: I concluded on both hands because I felt that the coldness was tremendously more huge and overwhelming over him and symmetrically placed over his entire body. I also felt the strong nerve signal of ice being strong in the spinal nerves.
1/3 chance, 4 runs: N/A

Conclusions: I was surprised at how strong the information was from hand in ice. I felt and therefore saw strong and clear information in the nerves as a response from having the hand in the ice. If a volunteer doesn't mind doing this kind of test, I would enjoy continuing with this type of induced information. The procedure needs to be improved on, for instance I have to be away while the volunteer places his hand in the ice so that I do not hear any clues, and this also allows a fourth option of "no hands" to be used. And also other improvements such as randomizing which hand or hands, no immediate feedback as to results after each trial, and continued improvements on the screen and setup of the study. It is wonderful to have found an infinite source of information for repeated trials in studies and tests.

First simple study with induced information - cotton

Next I want to try textures so my friend will hold cotton in the left hand, the right hand, both hands or no hands for a total of four options.

First study procedure
Same procedure as above.

Run	My answer	Right answer	Accuracy
1	Left hand	Left hand	Correct

1/4 chance, 1 run: N/A

Second study procedure
New procedure: My eyes are closed for the entire run.

Run	My answer	Right answer	Accuracy
1	Left hand	Right hand	Incorrect

Notes: I couldn't do it with my eyes closed, I wasn't locating the source of information as easily.
1/4 chance, 1 run: N/A

Conclusions: I only did two runs with cotton, and one with my eyes closed. These are just very early trials with various induced information, however I feel that I should list all results here and make no kind of selection of which type of studies or what results to present.

First simple study with induced information - tastes

My friend has a total of four different flavored foods each in its own cup: honey, chili sauce, strawberry syrup and steak sauce. A fifth cup is empty. He rolls a die that determines which to choose: 1 - honey, 2 - chili, 3 - strawberry, 4 - steak sauce, 5 - blank, 6 - roll the die again. The cups are in front of him. He puts some of the food on his finger. When he is ready to eat it he lets me know and I can open my eyes. I see only the back of his head. There is a plastic screen between us. I am about 3 feet behind him. If the number is 5, he pretends there was something in that empty cup and does the same procedure as if there was.

Run	My answer	Right answer	Accuracy
1	Steak sauce	Steak sauce	Correct
2	Honey	Chili sauce	Incorrect
3	Strawberry syrup	Strawberry syrup	Correct
4	Chili sauce	Steak sauce	Incorrect
5	Strawberry syrup	Chili sauce	Incorrect
6	Honey	Blank	Incorrect
7	Chili sauce	Chili sauce	Correct
8	Steak sauce	Chili sauce	Incorrect
9	Strawberry syrup	Honey	Incorrect
10	Blank	Blank	Correct

Notes: I was tired and not interested in the study. I wasn't even trying.
1/5 chance, 4 correct out of 10 runs: would have to get 6 or more correct to be significant, the results are not better than chance

Conclusions: I thought that some of the flavors were similar to one another. Also I was tired. To conclude on whether I can distinguish these tastes from one another when another person is eating them I would have to conduct at least one more study with similar results as were demonstrated in this one. I made myself committed to completing a total of ten trials in order to have enough material for statistical analysis.

First simple study with induced information - contracted fists again #2

Same procedure as before. It is evening and getting darker and I seem to need some light. (Other studies later on will see how I do with blindfold and/or in a dark room.) My friend now uses a die as a randomizer. 1 - left fist, 2 - right fist, 3 - both fists, 4 - no fists, 5 or 6 - roll again.

Run	My answer	Right answer	Accuracy
1	Left fist	No fist	Incorrect
2	Right fist	Left fist	Incorrect
3	Left fist	Right fist	Incorrect

Notes: I was getting very tired by now, all the studies on this webpage were done one after the other. With this I ended this day's studies.
1/4 chance, 3 runs: N/A

Conclusions: I was starting to feel tired and also something reminiscent of the beginnings of the headache and nausea I had before when I did tests on identifying Lactobacillus bacteria in cereal samples. I need to be careful and not exhaust myself because it can take several days for me to recover to the point where efforts in doing these studies won't make me feel uncomfortable. My level of energy seems to have effect on the results of the contracted hand studies as it did with the cereal tests in the past. More data is required to draw any conclusions, and luckily with induced information there is no shortage of volunteers or other material for studies.

Conclusions: The studies detailed on this page were all done in one evening. They were tries with different types of induced information and most of them were not carried out fully. I will proceed with further studies with contracted fists and with hands in ice. I would like to also try having a volunteer pinch their fingertip with a needle. I will continue on improving on the study procedure. How do I perform in darkness? The volunteer could get ready for a trial and then the lights be turned off, and then I enter the room. Or blindfolded? Or if I turn my back against the volunteer who is also turned back against me? Full-body screen? Different material of screen? In future studies I will try to carry out a total of ten trials in a row so that they can be statistically analyzed. A randomizer will be used always. No feedback after each trial but only after the set of ten trials. I will not be in the room while the volunteer gets ready. And are the results affected if there is a pane of glass between us, ie. one of us is outdoors and the other one is indoors with a large window in between. With induced information there is no longer a difficulty in finding volunteers for the study: the same person can be used repeatedly.
Note that the results on this page do not convince me one way or the other. More data and consistent data is required before concluding on anything. For instance I had high accuracy in the beginning with the constracted fists and later in the evening when I was tired there was no accuracy, so all that can be concluded is that it seems that some factor was different in the two studies with fists and that it affects the study results. A larger number of data can better reveal patterns, the data on this page is insufficient but is a beginning. More studies and more data will be made and presented on following pages.