The ability to detect unseen staring: A literature review and empirical tests

There is evidence to suggest that individuals not only believe in their abi lity to detect an unseen gaze, but may genuinely be able to do so. The pres ent study reviewed past research and sought to determine whether such a phe nomenon was empirically demonstrable. In Expt 1, 12 participants responded to 12 sequences (with feedback in the last nine) of 20 trials each, with st aring or non-staring episodes based on Sheldrake's random number sequences. No effects were obtained when no feedback was given. With feedback, more a ccurate than mean chance expectation (MCE) results were obtained on staring , but no difference on non-staring trials. However other 'normal' explanati ons of ESP phenomena discuss the possibility of matching in bias between ex perimental sequences :and participants' representations of randomness. Test s of the sequences found more alternations than expected, a feature typical of subjective randomness, but the increase in accuracy found on staring tr ials only was not consistent with this explanation. It was concluded that t he improvement in accuracy with feedback is likely to be due to implicit le arning, given the structure in non-random sequences. This hypothesis was su pported in Expt 2 where 12 participants responded to 12 'genuinely random' sequences, and no differences in accuracy from MCE were obtained.