title: Sensing the sending of SMS messages: an automated test.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The aim of this study was to carry out automated experiments to test for telepathy in connection with text messages.
  
  
  METHODS
  Subjects, aged from 11 to 72, registered online with the names and mobile telephone numbers of three senders. A computer selected a sender at random and asked him/her to send a short message service (SMS) message to the subject via the computer. The computer then asked the subject to guess the sender's name and delivered the message after receiving the guess. A test consisted of nine trials. The effects of subjects' sex and age and the effects of delay on guesses were evaluated. The main outcome measure was the proportion of correct guesses of the sender's name, compared with the 33.3% mean chance expectation.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In 886 trials, there were 336 hits (37.9%), significantly above the 33.3% chance level (P = .001). The hit rate in incomplete tests was 38.4% (P = .03), showing that optional stopping could not explain the positive results. Most tests were unsupervised, which left open the possibility of cheating, but high-scoring subjects were retested under filmed conditions, where no cheating was detected, with 19 hits in 43 trials (44.2%; P = 0.09).
authors.affiliation: Perrott-Warrick Project, London, England, UK. rsheldrake@clara.co.uk
authors.forename: Rupert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sheldrake
authors.forename: Leonidas
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Avraamides
authors.forename: Matous
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Novák
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D040421:Cell Phone; D002648:Child; D003142:Communication; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011336:Probability; D012737:Sex Factors; D013688:Telepathy; D006113:United Kingdom; D055815:Young Adult