Telepathic Tests in Virtual Worlds
Researchers at the University of Manchester’s schools of Computer Science and Psychological Sciences have created a virtual computer world in an experiment to test the telepathic abilities of 100 volunteers. Participants — usually friends or colleagues — will be paired up and put into separate rooms on different floors of the same building.
They will be asked to wear 3D headsets and electronic gloves and navigate their way around the virtual world where they will see a number of randomly selected objects. One of the volunteers only sees one object, which they are asked to interact with whilst the other sees the same object plus three decoys and they have to try and tune onto the other volunteer and figure out which one they are seeing.
Apparently the virtual world precludes the chances of cheating or leaving subconscious clues or signals, though how that could happen in a properly controlled experiment with volunteers in separate rooms, handling real world objects, remains a mystery. Moreover, the computers create a direct and difficult to manage physical link between the two subjects, but who are we to question science… A report on the experiment is expected in early 2007.
