Disquieting Features of Two ‘Confirmatory’ Psi Studies by Patrizio Tressoldi

In a previous post I reviewed the current status of psychical research in reference to so-called ‘confirmatory studies’ of laboratory psi. I concluded that the body of recent evidence suggests that the non-existence of laboratory psi is looking ever more certain.

The case for the existence of laboratory psi appears to rely almost entirely on studies led by a single, notable researcher, Dr. Patrizio Tressoldi at the University of Padua in Italy. Tressoldi’s collaborators include John Kruth, Executive Director of the Rhine Research Center, Durham, North Carolina, USA, Rupert Sheldrake and other notable figures in Parapsychology.

In total Tressoldi has registered 11 studies that are claimed to be confirmatory at the Koestler Parapsychology Unit. Nine of these preregistered studies have already published findings and findings for two of the studies are yet to be announced.

An ongoing investigation is examining the documentation of Tressoldi’s extraordinary claims. I say ‘extraordinary’ not only because of the nature of the claims, which fly in the face of accepted Science, but because they are the outliers of the majority of confirmatory studies, which are pointing to the non-existence of psi. Thus Tressoldi’s findings are exceptional.

As noted in my previous post, all of the studies claimed as fully confirmatory come from Patrizio Tressoldi’s laboratory. This preliminary report considers the status of two of Tressoldi’s confirmatory studies that are claimed to have found evidence of psi. An analysis is ongoing but is already revealing some disquieting features.

There is a case for voiding two studies with IDs 1002 and 1013 registered at the Koestler Parapsychology Unit for the reasons outlined below.

Reasons for Voiding Study 1002

According to the registration document, this study tests a single confirmatory hypothesis, namely that pupil dilation can predict and avoid potential negative stimulation. The report of the study is published in the journal EXPLORE with the title: “Does Psychophysiological Predictive Anticipatory Activity Predict Real or Future Probable Events?”

The paper states:

Experiments 1 and 2:The first two experiments are conceptual replications of studies by Tressoldi et al.,2, 3 using heart rate (HR) as PAA, instead of PD. 

Experiments 3 and 4:The following two experiments are a variant of the experiments of Tressoldi et al.³ The only difference being that the negative event predicted in the anticipatory phase was skipped instead of presented. Comparing the results with the previous experiments and the following ones, it is possible to test further the “bilking paradox,” that is, whether it is possible to avoid predicted future negative events, giving more support to the results observed in the experiment 2.

Experiment 4 This is an exact replication of the experiments by Tressoldi et al.,³ aimed at testing if the observed prediction accuracy holds even when the alerting stimuli get skipped when predicted from the measurement of the PD before their presentation.  

Note that reference 3 is to a paper in F1000: Tressoldi PE, Martinelli M, Semenzato L. “Pupil dilation prediction of random events [v2; ref status: approved with…]” which is disconfirmed study ID 1001.

A study (1002) cannot be called “confirmatory” if the study it is supposed to be replicating (1001): 1) did not itself find any significant outcomes and 2) was not fully approved for publication by its two peer reviewers.  

Reasons for Voiding Study 1013

In study 1013, the investigators changed the hypothesis for the study after the data had been collected. This invalidates the study as a pre-registered confirmatory study.

In addition, a post-publication re-analysis by an independent reviewer indicates that an incorrect statistical analysis was carried out for the original report of the findings.

Revision of Table of Confirmatory Findings

The voiding of two studies by Tressoldi for the reasons given above leads to a revised distribution of outcomes as shown in the table below.

INVESTIGATOR	CONFIRMATION	DISCONFIRMATION	TOTALS
TRESSOLDI	4	3	7
OTHERS	1(partial)	17	18
TOTALS	5	20	25

The above figures give an Exact Fisher Test statistic value of 0.0123 (p<.01). The percentage of claimed confirmatory psi studies is 20.0%, four of which are Tressoldi’s.

Conclusions

Owing to voiding of two studies, the number of genuine preregistered, confirmatory studies by Tressoldi has been reduced from 9 to 7. Of these seven, only four have reported positively confirmatory findings. These four studies remain as outliers beside the 20 disconfirming studies in the total of 25.

TABLE OF STUDIES IN THE ONGOING INVESTIGATION

No.	Study Title	Lead Author	Date Submitted	Study ID	Link to Registered Information	Post-publication review of findings
PT11	PsyPhotos (C)	Patrizio Tressoldi & Luciano Pederzoli	3rd Oct 2019	1054	KPU Registry 1054	NO PAPER YET PUBLISHED.
PT10	Mind-matter interaction at distance on a standalone device (C)	Patrizio Tressoldi & Luciano Pederzoli	21st Feb 2019	1049	KPU Registry 1049   Published Results DISCONFIRMED	NO CHANGE TO DISCONFIRMATION DECISION.
PT9	Telephone telepathy, an Italian independent exact replication (C)	Patrizio Tressoldi & Rupert Sheldrake	3rd Nov 2018	1048	KPU Registry 1048	NO PAPER YET PUBLISHED.
PT8	Can our mind emit light? A confirmatory experiment of mental interaction at distance on a photomultiplier (C) STUDY SHOULD BE VOIDED.	Patrizio Tressoldi & John Kruth	6th Jul 2015	1013	KPU Registry 1013 Errata Published Results CONFIRMATION CLAIM VOIDED	NOTE: ON AUGUST 15, 2015,THE INVESTIGATORS CHANGED THE PREDICTION FOR THE CONFIRMATION STUDY 1013 AFTER THE DATA HAD BEEN COLLECTED. THIS INVALIDATES THE STUDY.   IN ADDITION, A RE-ANALYSIS BY A POST-PUBLICATION PEER REVIEWER INDICATES THAT AN INCORRECT STATISTICAL ANALYSIS WAS CARRIED OUT.   SSRN Re-analysis by Grote (2017; https://www.neuroquantology.com/article.php?id=1699) questions the finding claiming an incorrect statistical assumption by the authors.
PT7	Biophotons as physical correlates of mental interaction at distance: a new confirmatory study (C)	Patrizio Tressoldi & John Kruth	29th Apr 2015	1012	KPU Registry 1012 Published Results CONFIRMATION CLAIMED	Confirmatory hypotheses: The number of photons detected by the PMT in the 30 minutes after the MI will outperform those detected in the 30 minutes before the MI. These differences will hold subtracting the number of photons in the corresponding 60 minutes of the control sessions. SSRN: Same as 1013 above. Can Our Minds Emit Light at 7300 km Distance? A Pre-Registered Confirmatory Experiment of Mental Entanglement with a Photomultiplier. ANALYSIS ONGOING
PT6	CardioAlert: A portable assistant for the choice between negative or positive random events (C)	Patrizio Tressoldi	17th Mar 2015	1011	KPU_Registry_1011 Published Results CONFIRMATION CLAIMED	SSRN: CardioAlert: A Heart Rate Based Decision Support System for Improving Choices Related to Negative or Positive Future Events. ANALYSIS ONGOING
PT5	Biophotons as physical correlates of mental interaction at distance: a confirmatory study (C)	Patrizio Tressoldi & John Kruth	8th Oct 2014	1010	KPU_Registry_1010 Published Results DISCONFIRMATION	SSRN: Can our Mind Emit Light? Mental Entanglement at Distance with a Photomultiplier.   ANALYSIS ONGOING
PT4	Mind-matter interaction at distance on a random events generator (REG): a confirmatory study (C)	Patrizio Tressoldi	15th May 2014	1009	KPU_Registry_1009 Published Results CONFIRMATION CLAIMED	NeuroQuantology: Mind-Matter Interaction at a Distance of 190 km: Effects on a Random Event Generator Using a Cutoff Method.   ANALYSIS ONGOING
PT3	Brain-to-brain (mind-to-mind) interaction at distance: a proof of concept of mental telecommunication (C)	Patrizio Tressoldi	23rd Apr 2014	1008	KPU_Registry_1008 Published Results CONFIRMATION CLAIMED	SSRN: Brain-to-Brain (Mind-to-Mind) Interaction at Distance: A Confirmatory Study   ANALYSIS ONGOING
PT2	Pupil dilation prediction of random negative events. Can they be avoided? (C)   THIS STUDY WAS EXPLORATORY NOT CONFIRMATORY.   STUDY SHOULD BE VOIDED.	Patrizio Tressoldi	1st Feb 2013	1002	KPU_Registry_1002 Published Results CONFIRMATION CLAIM VOIDED	According to the registration document, this study tests a single confirmatory hypothesis, namely that pupil dilation can predict and avoid potential negative stimulation. SSRN: Does Psychophysiological Predictive Anticipatory Activity Predict Real or Future Probable Events? This paper is published in EXPLORE. It states: “Experiments 1 and 2:The first two experiments are conceptual replications of studies by Tressoldi et al.,2, 3 using heart rate (HR) as PAA, instead of PD.  “Experiments 3 and 4:The following two experiments are a variant of the experiments of Tressoldi et al.3 The only difference being that the negative event predicted in the anticipatory phase was skipped instead of presented. Comparing the results with the previous experiments and the following ones, it is possible to test further the “bilking paradox,” that is, whether it is possible to avoid predicted future negative events, giving more support to the results observed in the experiment 2.” “Experiment 4 This is an exact replication of the experiments by Tressoldi et al.,3 aimed at testing if the observed prediction accuracy holds even when the alerting stimuli get skipped when predicted from the measurement of the PD before their presentation.”   Note that reference 3 is from F1000: Tressoldi PE, Martinelli M, Semenzato L. Pupil dilation prediction of random events [v2; ref status: approved with…] the disconfirmed study 1001. A study cannot be confirmatory when the study being replicated did not itself find any significant outcomes and was not fully approved for publication by the reviewers at F1000 (see below).
PT1	Pupil dilation accuracy in the prediction of random events (C)	Patrizio Tressoldi	26th Nov 2012	1001	KPU_Registry_1001 Published Results (1 of 2) Published Results (2 of 2) DISCONFIRMATION	Publication 1 of 2: F1000 Version 1: peer review 1 approved 1 approved with reservations Version 2 peer review: 2 approved with reservations. Thus, the peer reviewers gave a lower level of approval to Version 2 than Version 1 because they remained highly concerned about the statistical analysis, which one claimed was circular.   Publication 2 of 2: SSRN Results at chance level. Thus, the experimental hypothesis was disconfirmed.