UC Davis statistician analyzes validity of paranormal predictions

By: JENNIFER WOLF

Did you ever dream about an event before it happened to you? Or, perhaps you knew what another person was going to say before they said it? These events, examples of anomalous cognition, are part of our everyday experience but still remain to be understood scientifically.

Jessica Utts, professor of statistics at UC Davis, has been one of the few statisticians to work in the field of parapsychology, analyzing data and helping with experimental design.

Gathering statistics for parapsychology still uses the same methods, Utts said.

"As a statistician we can work on data in any field and it's still the same statistical methods," she said.

Utts earned a bachelor's degree in math and psychology at the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1973 and a doctorate in statistics from Penn State University in 1978. She has since worked as a professor and statistician at UC Davis, catching a few breaks to work as a visiting professor at Stanford University and as a senior research fellow at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

In 1995, Utts was hired by the American Institutes of Research, an independent research firm, along with psychologist Ray Hyman from the University of Oregon to analyze data from a 20-year research program sponsored by the U.S. government to investigate paranormal activity.

After doing initial research, Hyman and Utts found statistical support, she said.

"The two of us did this review and we both concluded that there were really strong statistical results there, but [Hyman] still didn't believe that it could be explained by something psychic - he thought there would be some explanation [that he] can't provide," Utts said.

The research program involved remote viewing, in which test subjects were asked to describe or draw an unknown target. The target could be anything and could be located anywhere. According to Utts' meta-analysis of the 966 studies performed at Stanford Research Institute, subjects could identify the target correctly 34 percent of the time. The probability of these results occurring by chance is .000000000043.

Utts compared these results to a similar meta-analysis of aspirin treatment for heart disease. In 2002, researchers published a meta-analysis in the British Medical Journal of 188 studies. The results demonstrated that aspirin reduced the number of heart attacks in people likely to have heart disease by 25 percent, with a probability of it occurring by chance equaling .0003.

"The evidence for [remote viewing] is much stronger than [aspirin preventing heart attacks] and yet we have people taking aspirin everyday to try to prevent heart attacks," Utts said. "People aren't willing to either look at this evidence or aren't willing to believe it when they see it."

Utts' study of paranormal activity should not be dismissed, said Keith Widaman, UCD professor of psychology and chair of the department.

"The way [Utts] is analyzing and portraying the data sounds reasonable," he said. "Most psychologists would say, 'Those things have never stood up,' but that doesn't mean [that] we should automatically [react the same]. What it means is, there's something here that deserves attention and it's an interesting hypothesis. It would be interesting to see if it holds up."

In 2005, Utts taught a class for the integrated studies honors program, "Testing Psychic Claims," in which Kyle Davis, senior biological sciences major, conducted an experiment using a random number generator.

Each test subject played rock-paper-scissors against the random numbers presented in the study, he said.

"We came up with significant data," Davis said. "It made us re-think it a little bit. [Utts] provided a number of examples where it wasn't probable by chance alone, so something else had to explain it to a degree."

Davis was doubtful of the field of parapsychology before the class and is still unsure, he said.

"I'm still leaning a little bit on the skeptic side, but I see where more study is needed to convince me either way," Davis said. "So I'd say, yeah, I think [parapsychology] is a valid field and that we need to learn more about it before we can say one thing in either direction."

Utts presented statistics in a straightforward manner for Nick Schroeder, senior international relations major, he said.

"I entered the class a skeptic, and I stayed a skeptic," Schroeder said. "I learned a lot about the statistical analysis of 'psi.' The statistical data presented to us suggests that there is something metaphysical, but no one knows what it is."

Utts is currently working with Ellen Gold, chair of the department of epidemiology and preventive medicine at the UCD School of Medicine, analyzing data in the use of alternative and complementary medicine among women going through menopause, she said.