Impact of Bem´s “Feeling the future” (2011):

methodological considerations
Bruno A. 1
Silva ;
Gabrielle Poeschl 1
1Center for Psychology at University of Porto, Portugal

Introduction Results
In parapsychology, some controversies have been
documented and studied (e.g. Zingrone, 2006;
Palmer, 2015). Aiming to complement more in-
depth approaches to those controversies, we
analyzed the summaries of texts that cite Bem´s
article “Feeling the future” (2011).

Method
The texts that cites Bem´s “Feeling the future”
(2011) were identified from the Elsevier
Scopus database for the years 2011 to 2015.
The export procedure was performed on Figure 1. Initial analysis by source indexation subject Figure 2. Analysis by country sources
August 24, 2015 resulting in 162 texts.

Titles, abstracts, authors’ keywords, years of

publication and authors’ names were
compiled into a single textual corpus.

Independent variables were added: one

variable for the year of publication (variable
with five modalities, from 2011 to 2015), and
two variables for the source indexation subject
(variable “psi”, with two modalities: 1 - source
indexed in subject area Psychology; 2 - source
not indexed in subject area Psychology; and
variable “sopsi”, with three modalities: 1 -
source indexed only in psychology subject; 2 -
source indexed in Psychology and also in other
subjects; 3 - source not indexed in subject area
Psychology). Figure 3. Dendrogram and relative weight of the classes Figure 4. Correspondence analysis

The corpus was analyzed using the Iramuteq
program for textual data (Interface de R pour
les Analyses Multidimensionnelles de Textes et
de Questionnaires, version 07.2, Ratinaud,
2009).
The analysis extracted four classes of vocabulary, suggesting that the impact can be grouped in four different
areas: 1) The role of replication in psychology research; 2) Bayesian statistical inference; 3) Experimental
studies in anomalous experiences; 4) The quantum phenomena and theories. Replication and Bayesian classes
were more represented in psychology literature.

Iramuteq is based in calculations performed Conclusions

on co-occurrence of words in text segments
(TS), in a particular corpus. First, the program
reduces the words to their roots
(lemmatization) and scales the TS. TS are then
subject to a hierarchical downward
classification using repeated chi-square
distance tests, in order to form the most
contrasting classes in terms of vocabulary.
Replication vocabulary class addresses the role of replication in psychology research. The lack of
replication of some studies, along with questionable research practices, may have contributed to a crisis
of credibility regarding psychological science.
Bayesian vocabulary class points mainly to concepts related with the Bayesian approach. The text
segments reflected the perceived merits of this approach when compared with more traditional
inferential statistics, namely statistics relying on p-values.

Iramuteq also makes it possible to examine Experimental studies in anomalous experiences vocabulary class includes frequent terms related to
the relationships between textual classes and experimental studies and psi phenomena (e.g. remote viewing, precognition, prestimulus), but also terms
independent variables. related to specific methodologies (e.g. non-intentional precognition task, Go/NoGo task) and theory
(PMIR – psi-mediated instrumental response).

Quantum phenomena and theories vocabulary class suggests that quantum theories of
brain/consciousness function may leave the door open to the possibility of the existence of psi
phenomena.

The fact that Replication and Bayesian classes were more represented in psychology literature, confirms
our hypothesis that psychology sources would have a more critical position.

Contact References
Bruno A. Silva & Gabrielle Poeschl Bem, D. J. (2011). Feeling the future: experimental evidence for anomalous retroactive influences on cognition and affect. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 100(3), 407-425.
Center for Psychology at University of Porto, Portugal Bem, D., Tressoldi, P., Rabeyron, T., & Duggan, M. (2015). Feeling the future: A meta-analysis of 90 experiments on the anomalous anticipation of random future
events. F1000 Research, 4:1188. doi: 10.12688/f1000research.7177.1
Email: pt.bruno.silva@gmail.com Palmer, J. (2015). Implicit Anomalous Cognition. In E. Cardeña, J. Palmer, & D. Marcusson-Clavertz (Eds.), Parapsychology : a handbook for the 21st century (pp.
215-229). Jefferson: McFarland.
Website: http://www.fpce.up.pt/cpup Ratinaud, P. (2009). IRAMUTEQ: Interface de R pour les analyses multidimensionnelles de textes et de questionnaires [computer software]. Available from:
http://www.iramuteq.org
Phone: +351 966 701 064 Zingrone, N. L. (2006). From text to self: the interplay of criticism and response in the history of parapsychology (Doctoral dissertation, University of Edinburgh).
Retrieved from: https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/7722