quote:
Originally posted by Kristoff Olafsson:
The only difference is the PR step, which, as I wrote and exhorted people exhaustively to realize, may or may not do anything beyond the so-called placebo effect, as yet, no available studies have analyzed the efficacy of the PR step in and of itself. This needs to be done, contrary to the obscurantist and looped-logically arguments of Believers such as AlexK.
This is very interesting to me, as I came to the same conclusion.
I decided to test exactly this possible placebo affect of the PR step.
I find the photoreading whole mind system very useful, and do not use any other method of reading. I have not had any type of spontaneous activation or other revelations leave me able to confirm for myself that the PR step actually plays a significant role in my reading, although I continue to use the PR step and preview/postview/mindprobing.
At my college, sophomores in the honors program are required to do a research project with a faculty member of their choice. I chose one from the psychology department (I’m a math and biology double major) and designed an experiment that would test the affect of the photoreading step in the system.
I have already posted the method on here at least once, but here it is again:
----------------------------
Take photoreaders, give them a book and questions. Let them preview, photoread, super read and whatever else they want to answer the questions.
Then, part two, give them the book, the questions, but this time, after the preview, substitute a duplicate book with content unrelated to the questions, but with a very similar appearance so as to cause them to believe that they had actually photoread the book. Then allow them to continue as normal with the activation and compare the results.
----------------------------------
At first, I was confident that I would get good results, but now I am not. I have not yet been able to complete the experiment due to the difficulties of getting together/training photoreaders, but I promise to post the results as soon as I am able.
Why did I lose confidence in getting a positive result from my experiment?
Well, the last time I mentioned my experiment here, Dana suggested that I talk to Paul Scheele first. I was very excited, and after a few attempts I did actually get to speak with the man himself.
Except… he hated my experiment. He said it was “lame at best.”
He said that the part where I switch the book, so the people think they photoread but actually didn’t was “the silly and annoying part” of my experiment.
He suggested that I just tell them not to photoread instead of tricking them.
Unfortunately, if I were to do that, it wouldn’t be testing whether or not PR is just a placebo step.
Whatever the results of my experiment, it won’t prove anything conclusively, but maybe someone else will repeat my experiment and we can’t figure this out. It doesn’t seem difficult at all …. Once you get a group of photoreaders together.
Adam
