The PK Task

The PK task simulates a ball-drop game that is sometimes found in amusement arcades.

The aim is to use your psychokinetic powers to influence the direction in which the "ball" falls - either to the left or right, whichever you prefer.

Choosing a Procedure

First you must choose which procedure you wish to use.

CLICK EVERY MOVE means that you have to manually click on the ball each time you want it to move.

START EVERY BALL means that you click to start the fall of each ball and then watch as it falls.

AUTOMATIC means that the balls will drop automatically - you can just watch the whole process as it unfolds. 

Choosing the Number of Balls to Drop

If you wish, you can predetermine the number of balls you want to drop. This is important if you want to use the test for research purposes (to avoid the temptation to stop whenever results are good).

Alternatively, you can select MANUAL STOP. The test will then run continuously until you decide to stop it.

Changing the Speed

When using the AUTOMATIC or START EVERY BALL procedures, you can change the speed the ball drops AT ANY TIME (just click on the FASTER and SLOWER buttons)..

Analysis of Results

You can analyse the results for significance AT ANY TIME without disturbing the current test (the ball must have made at least 20 moves).

The analysis will calculate the critical ratio (z score) and the probability of obtaining these results by chance. The lower the probability the better. Conventionally, a probability of 0.05 (1 chance in 20) or less is taken as indicating significance. Probabilities of 0.01 (1 in 100) or 0.001 (1 in 1000) provide more reliable evidence of PK.

The analysis will assess the results as Not Significant, Fair, Good,  Excellent, or Fantastic.

"Not significant" means that your results are most likely due to chance.

"Fair " means that less than one person in 20 would be expected to do this well.

"Good" means that less than one person in 100 would be expected to do this well.

"Excellent" means that less than one person in 1000 would be expected to do this well.

"Fantastic" means that less than one person in a million would be expected to do this well.

Note that when using this test for research purposes, you should only use results for fully completed runs (based on the predetermined number of balls). This final analysis of results automatically pops up when the run is complete.

Further Testing

If you wish to test performance over several attempts, record the number of right and left moves (and/or red and green balls) on each attempt. You can then test for the combined significance of your results using Psi Test Significance Calculator. When entering data into the calculator, the number of trials = total number of right moves + total number of left moves (or total number of red balls + total number of green balls). The number of hits = total number of  moves or balls in the intended direction..

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