Evidence for EEG correlation at a distance

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Originally Posted by annnnoid (Post 11148399) What it comes down to…is that I can very easily describe all kinds of psychological activity that implicates incorporeal events. There’s lots of evidence. You just pretend it’s not evidence.

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Originally Posted by MuDPhuD (Post 11149977) This is what I keep waiting for. Please elaborate on the psychological activity which implicates incorporal events. Can you elaborate on that evidence.

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Originally Posted by annnnoid (Post 11151908) An abbreviated list of some of the evidence: Healing at a Distance Edited by zooterkin:  <SNIP> Edited for rule 4. List of citations are here - http://ift.tt/1fIDBUy

From the list of evidences given in support of non-corporeal aspects of psychology I have chosen a group of papers which purport to describe the correlation of EEG recordings between individuals who are isolated from one another.

This idea apparently owes is orgin to the observations of Duane and Behrendt
(Duane & Behrendt (1965). Extrasensory electroencephalographic induction between identical twins).
This study describes
"the appearance without conventional elicitation of an alpha rhythm in one twin while it is being evoked under standard conditions in the other".
The study was relatively non-technical:
"Analysis of the records was by gross inspection. The evidence sought was the presence or absence of alpha patterns and their correlations in tracings obtained from the subjects."
This is a very interesting finding deserving further study!

The idea was further investigated by Grinberg
(Grinberg-Zylberbaum et al (1994). The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox in the Brain: The transferred potential) .
The study did not find obvious correlation in alpha waves, certainly nothing correlated by gross inspection! (No one has made such a claim in print since that 1965 paper)
Through digital analysis and summation they do claim to have found what they termed transferred potentials.
"..in about one in four cases when one of the subjects is stimulated in such a way that his/her brain responds clearly (with a distinct evoked potential), the brain of the nonstimulated subject also reacts and shows a transferred potential of a similar morphology."
You can look at their superimposed EEG tracings yourself. To me they are not particularly convincing, and remember these are summated EEGS over multiple trials, not individual tracings. But still, replication is the way to go if your not sure.

In 2003-4 there are 4 papers claiming to establish EEG correlation between isolated subjects. I will quote from Wackerman :
(Wackermann et al (2003). Correlations between brain electrical activities of two spatially separated human subjects)

"The results should not be interpreted as a successful replication of the ‘transferred potential’ [2,3]. We did not see any VEP-like wave-forms in the averaged EEG of the nonstimulated subjects: a more sophisticated data analytic technique was necessary to detect an effect opposing the null hypothesis. There was no preferred direction of the effect; both increasing (Q. V˜ max) and decreasing (Q , V˜ min) effective EEG voltages were observed in non-stimulated subjects. Neither was there any ‘locus of maximal effect’;the outliers occurred not only at occipital locations, i.e. homotopic to the areas primarily affected in the stimulated subject, but also in parietal and central regions. We thus should avoid the na¨ıve and misleading term ‘transferred potential’;"
The Grinberg finding FAILED to REPLICATE, but "a more sophisticated data-analytic technique was necessary to detect an effect opposing the null
hypothesis". All these studies use relatively technical analysis of summated EEGs to come up with any significant correlation at all. Note that we have gone from gross inspection of individual tracings, to summation, to contorted analysis, and none of these studies is able replicate the previous findings, but all are considered to support EEG correlation at a distance!

In 2008 a further study appears
(Ambach (2008). Correlations between the EEGs of two spatially separated subjects: a replication study)
I will quote the author:
"even without a correction for multiple testing, none of the six chi-squares exceeded the significance level of 0.05.
The overall result is seen as a negative outcome of the attempt to
replicate prior findings of EEG correlations in this specific
experimental paradigm."
and
"Besides the failed replication, the study critically revised the statistical procedure applied in previous studies. "

It turns out that the details of the statistical procedure used to analyse the highly processed EEGs make a huge difference in the findings!

Most recently in 2010 :
(Hinterberger (2010). Searching for neuronal markers of psi: A summary of three studies measuring electrophysiology in distant participants)

Hinterberger attempts a further replication and finds:
"The global ERPs, including all electrodes and all picture categories, revealed no significant results in all three studies. The SCP and the EOG also remained non-significant. No significant variable could be found after analyzing each stimulus category separately."
But he does find a very small barely significant effect in various spectral bands which changes depending on which type of stimulus, etc., and he says "As the p values have to be corrected for multiple testing with an unknown factor most of the significances might not survive such a correction. However, the repeated Alpha band effect accumulates to a z-score of 4.0 (p=0.00003) which easily survives even a highly conservative correction."
So he has succeeded in manipulating the data to the point where he can find something significant, although of VERY SMALL MAGNITUDE, and his careful replication of previous work FAILS TO REPLICATE THEIR FINDINGS.

What this amounts to is a series of studies over decades, where each subsequent study fails to replicate previous findings, but each insists on finding something significant (to keep the dream alive), which then fails to be replicated.
A series of studies like this can not be considered together as supporting a conclusion when each fails to replicate the previous. Failure to replicate is a FATAL FLAW.

It is not a tower of work resting on a firm base, it is a very low pile of rubble which can not withstand the slightest scrutiny.

via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/1RD44lt