Psychic Experiment to Be Conducted Using Twitter

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Twitter users will attempt to prove whether psychic powers really exist when they take part in an experiment this week. The test, conducted by university professor Richard Wiseman, requires Tweeters to correctly guess a location from five photographs. Prof. Wiseman said: "The instant nature of Tweets allows thousands of people to take part in real time, making it perfect for an extra-sensory perception experiment.

If the effect does exist then having so many people participate will help detect it." The University of Hertfordshire lecturer will travel to a mystery U.K. site, where he will send a tweet asking users to reply with their impressions of his chosen spot. They will then receive a Web site link via Twitter where they can vote on a set of five photos, one of the actual location and four decoys.

The telepathic test, being conducted with New Scientist magazine, begins on Tuesday and will be repeated at a different location each day until Friday.

The University of Hertfordshire lecturer will travel to a mystery UK site, where he will send a tweet asking users to reply with their impressions of his chosen spot.

They will then receive a website link via Twitter where they can vote on a set of five photos, one of the actual location and four decoys.

The telepathic test, being conducted with New Scientist magazine, begins on Tuesday and will be repeated at a different location each day until Friday. Prof Wiseman said there is a one in 125 chance that Tweeters will correctly guess three out of four sites correctly.

Anyone can take part in the experiment by visiting twitter.com/RichardWiseman. The results of the test should be known on Friday.