Card Color "Possible Psychic Ability" Test

Introduction to Psychology ~ Dr. Anthony A. Walsh



Hypothesis: When a red-black card guessing test is performed using college students as subjects, the proportion of students who demonstrate "possible psychic ability" will be .10 (10%).

Operational Definition of "possible psychic ability": "possible psychic ability" will be considered to have been demonstrated when a student achieves a minimum outcome of 34 HITS to 18 MISSES.

Procedure: Using a standard playing deck of 52 cards, the experimenter asks subjects to guess the color of a card -- RED or BLACK -- before turning it over. When the color of the card is revealed, the subject records whether it was a HIT(correct guess) or a MISS(incorrect guess). Chance predicts that most subjects will get very near to the 26 HITS and 26 MISSES expected in this 50-50 situation.

Johnny Carson, long-time late night host, as the Great All Seeing All Knowing Carnac. The gag was that he would be given an answer and he had to guess the question. His questions were always hilarious.
18 misses(or hits) and 34 hits(or misses) is the minimum threshold needed to reach statistical significance.

Note: Probability values express the liklihood that you would be wrong were you to conclude that a particular hits-misses combination was occuring for reasons other than chance. p = .038 means there would be just shy of 4 chances in 100 that you would be wrong, p = .001 means there would be only 1 chance in 1000 you would be wrong, and p = .0001 means only one chance in 10,000. The lower the risk of your being wrong, the more statistically significant the outcome. [aaw, 020926 ]

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Revised: February 13, 2003