The Potential Effects of Human Group Emotion and Subjective Novelty on the Statistical Behaviour of a Random Event Generator: Exploratory Study

Abstract

Many traditional beliefs regard “human energy” as an integral component in human health and positive life experience. A number of areas in the realm of complementary and alternative medicine, as well as consciousness research in general, have explored the potential for these subtle energies in a myriad of experiments and applications. The FieldREG experiments previously conducted by a number of researchers have demonstrated an apparent effect of novel or emotional group activities on the statistical deviations of a proximal Random Event Generator device. In the present study, further exploration of this phenomenon was employed in both novel and relatively mundane group settings. Furthermore, a directional hypothesis was pursued whereby positive emotional experiences were expected to produce upward (positive) trends in the random data, while negative emotional settings would produce downward (negative) deviations. Finally, an overall comparison between random data from positive and negative settings was investigated. Results tended to support current theories that emotional or novel group experiences appear to influence the statistical performance of a random physical device, and that the emotional valence may further affect the overall direction of the random data obtained.