Over the past decade, there has been increasing scientific interest in anomalous experiences. These can be defined as “uncommon experience[s] [. . . ] that, although [they] may be experienced by a significant number of persons [. . . ], [are] believed to deviate from ordinary experience or from the usually accepted explanation of reality according to Western mainstream science” (Cardeña et al.,...

In this paper, a dual-scale modelling approach is developed to investigate creep-fatigue behavior and predict crack initiation life for holed structures under multi-axial stress state. The macro-scale simulation supplies local deformation histories the as boundary conditions. process, micro-mechanical damage evolution are described by using crystal plasticity. order validate procedures, series ...

Cognitive biases such as causal illusions have been related to paranormal and pseudoscientific beliefs and, thus, pose a real threat to the development of adequate critical thinking abilities. We aimed to reduce causal illusions in undergraduates by means of an educational intervention combining training-in-bias and training-in-rules techniques. First, participants directly experienced situatio...

The students of the university of teacher education St.Gallen (PHSG, Switzerland) document aspects of their learning process affiliated with their first experiences in a practical training class during their first academic year linked with an E-Portfolio (Weblog). The first presented study reports findings (n= 129; questionnaire; Man Withney UTests; Wilcoxon Signed Rank Tests) concerning the at...

I conduct an empirical analysis of the temporally asymmetric character of our epistemic access to the world by providing an experimental schema whose results represent the core empirical content of the epistemic asymmetry. I augment this empirical content by formulating a gedanken experiment. This second experiment cannot be conducted using any technology that is likely to be developed in the f...

of the most important methods for preventing bias in modern clinical trials have a peculiar history. Masked assessment with placebo control seems to have appeared first during tests led by Benjamin Franklin in 1784 to investigate unorthodox claims of healing by 'animal magnetism' or 'mesmerism'. People were blindfolded and told that they were or were not receiving magnetism, when the reverse wa...

The possibility of precognition has fascinated humanity since ancient times making it a recurring theme in fiction and mythology. It has also been a topic for scientific investigation. While the majority of such parapsychological studies have been ignored by the larger scientific community, several recent studies of purported precognitive phenomena were published by major international psycholo...

CONTEXT Many spontaneous cases of extra-sensory perception (ESP) seem to occur without the conscious intent of the experient to manifest any anomalous phenomena. Indeed, Stanford׳s psi-mediated instrumental response (PMIR) theory, which frames ESP as a goal-oriented function, goes as far as to suggest that such intent may be counterproductive to psi. OBJECTIVES The present study was the lates...