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Volume 14: Number 1: Article 4
The Correlation of the Gradient of Shannon Entropy and Anomalous Cognition: Towards an AC Sensory System
Edwin C. May, S. James P. Spottiswoode, and Laura V. Faith, The Laboratories
for Fundamental Research, 330 Cowper St., Suite 300, Palo Alto, California
94301
Lantz et al. (1994) conducted two high-quality experiments a year apart
that demonstrated strong evidence for anomalous cognition (AC). May,
Spottiswoode, and James (1994a) analyzed these data and compared the
Shannon entropy and its gradient for the targets used in the studies
with the AC performance. Overall, they found a significant correlation
between the quality of the AC with the gradient, but not with the entropy
itself. May et al. speculated that this result was suggestive of the
behavior of the other sensory systems. In this study, we created a new
target pool and a more sensitive analytical system in order to replicate
these earlier findings. We invited five experienced receivers (i.e.,
experiment participants) to contribute 15 trials each. The target pool
consisted of 300 carefully chosen digital images from a set of 20,000
pictures from the Corel Stock Photo Library of Professional Photographs.
The trial protocol was controlled by email and feedback was provided
on the World Wide Web. All experimenters, as well as the receiver, were
blind to the target choice in a trial until the analysis was complete.
Besides the usual rank-order analysis, two additional methods were used
to assess the quality of the AC. The first of these was a zero-to-seven
rating scale that had been used in the earlier studies. The second,
a figure of merit, was based upon a fuzzy-set encoding of the targets
and responses. The primary hypotheses were that a significant correlation
would be seen between the figure of merit quality assessment and the
gradient of Shannon entropy for the associated target, and that the
correlation using the rating assessment would be consistent with earlier
findings. A secondary hypothesis was that the figure of merit quality
would not correlate with the entropy of the associated target. All hypotheses
were confirmed. The correlation of the figure of merit with the entropic
gradient was significant (Spearman's r = 0.212, df = 73, p = 0.034).
The Spearman's r for the correlation with the entropy was 0.042, df
= 73, p = 0.361. The combined correlation using the rating assessment
for the tatic targets in the previous studies led to a Spearman's r
= 0.161, df = 41, p = 0.152; whereas in this study r = 0.183, df = 24,
p = 0.188. We discuss the reasons why the entropy correlation with the
figure of merit is significant whereas the sum-of-rank statistic is
not (i.e. mean rank = 2.987, ES = 0.004, and p = 0.486.
Keywords: anomalous cognition, pattern analysis, entropy gradient
FULL TEXT:
The Correlation of the Gradient of Shannon
Entropy and Anomalous Cognition: Toward an AC Sensory System
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