Discovery Lab Answers

Dick J. Bierman — Experiments and Data

Dick J. Bierman (University of Amsterdam and University of Utrecht) has pursued several interrelated research programs, primarily focused on whether physiological or behavioral responses can precede randomly determined future stimuli — a class of effects he investigates under the labels presentiment, retrocausation, and related frameworks. The sources retrieved for this question cover four distinct bodies of work.

1. Presentiment and Anomalous Baseline Effects

Bierman’s most sustained experimental program examines whether skin conductance responses (SCR) in the baseline period before an emotional stimulus differ from baselines before neutral stimuli — measured before any stimulus is presented, under genuinely randomized conditions.

Two retrieved papers address this directly ^[1][2]:

• In the 2000 Parapsychological Association paper ^[2], Bierman re-analyzed three existing mainstream psychophysiology datasets — including an emotional priming study and a card-gambling study (Bechara et al.) — asking whether pre-stimulus baselines tracked emotional content of the forthcoming stimulus. The global hypothesis across the three studies was that baseline anticipatory skin conductance preceding emotional events would exceed baselines preceding neutral or less-emotional events. The combined result across the three studies reached z = 2.748, p = 0.003 ^[2]. The Bechara gambling dataset is noted separately: that baseline effect could in principle be explained by implicit learning of deck riskiness, so the anomalous-baseline interpretation is not unambiguous there.

• The 2001 BIAL symposium paper ^[1] extended this, reporting a re-analysis of mainstream data with attention to fear-relevant stimuli (spiders, snakes) and individual differences in fear sensitivity. Participants were assigned to control groups if their scores fell below the 50th percentile on spider or snake fear questionnaires. Across four decks of stimuli, three of four showed differences in the expected direction; the pooled result was marginally significant (p = 0.0525) ^[1]. Bierman also examined whether the anomalous pre-stimulus signal appeared closer to stimulus onset than a simple mirror-image of the post-stimulus response would predict, reporting that the observed peaks were consistent with a time-forward asymmetry rather than simple baseline drift ^[1].

A secondary finding ^[2] was an estimate of how much the anomalous baseline effect, whatever its cause, distorts conventionally computed response values in psychophysiological emotion research — specifically, that erotic pictures drove most of the baseline anomaly in the emotional-picture studies ^[2].

2. Retrocausal Effects on Behavioral Performance: The Go/NoGo Task

Bierman and Bijl (2014) ^[4] tested retroactive effects in a behavioral (non-physiological) paradigm. The design used a Go/NoGo reaction-time task in two phases: subjects performed the task, then a future target shape was randomly determined; the question was whether response times to that shape in the first phase differed from response times to a control shape.

Key reported results ^[4]:

The approximately 2% faster response to future-target shapes was driven entirely by participants classified as intuitive (rather than rational) thinkers on the HIP questionnaire subscales ^[4]. Sample size was determined by an a priori power analysis based on effect sizes from Franklin and Schooler’s experiments ^[4], and the authors state no optional stopping was used.

3. Retro-Priming Replications and Connectivity Analysis

Jolij and Bierman (published 2019, submitted 2017) ^[3] attempted two replications of a retro-priming paradigm — one at Groningen, one at Amsterdam — in which priming stimuli presented after a response were examined for effects on that response. Neither replication reproduced the originally hypothesized psi score (mean psi score defined as difference in response time between incongruent and congruent conditions, compared against an expectation of zero). The authors then introduced a secondary measure they call “connectivity” — a characterization of the correlation structure across conditions in the data matrix — and found:

• Groningen study: connectivity marginally larger than chance expectation, p < 0.075 ^[3]
• Amsterdam study: connectivity significantly larger than chance expectation, p < 0.025 ^[3]

These connectivity results are framed within Bierman’s Consciousness Induced Restoration of Time Symmetry (CIRTS) theoretical model ^[3][4], which draws on the time-symmetry of physical formalisms to argue that retrocausal effects are theoretically permissible. The authors explicitly note that the connectivity measure’s threshold (p < 0.10 for calling a correlation “significant”) is subjective, and that further replications are required before conclusions hold ^[3].

4. Forensic/Methodological Work: PRL Autoganzfeld Target Distributions

Bierman collaborated with Rick E. Berger and Richard Broughton on a 1998 forensic examination of the PRL autoganzfeld’s target-selection records. The analysis found a peculiar over-representation of certain target numbers in the sequence that could not be explained by the selection procedure itself — though this anomaly did not account for the overall hit excess in the autoganzfeld series. This work is discussed in detail on the Forensic Critique of Psi Datasets page. Bierman also independently replicated FieldREG work in paradigms similar to those used by Roger D. Nelson, whose GCP and FieldREG work is covered at Roger D. Nelson’s profile.

Skeptical Critiques

What critics argue. The mainstream psychophysiology datasets Bierman re-analyzes ^[1][2] — particularly the Bechara gambling data — have an alternative, non-anomalous explanation: participants may have learned the riskiness of card decks through accumulated experience, producing elevated anticipatory arousal by a conventional implicit-learning mechanism rather than by any pre-stimulus anomalous process. Bierman himself acknowledges this in ^[2], noting that the Bechara baseline effect can be explained causally under an implicit-learning assumption.

What the experimental data show. The combined z = 2.748 (p = 0.003) across the three studies ^[2] is the aggregate signal Bierman reports, but the constituent datasets were not designed to test presentiment — they are re-analyses of existing mainstream data, not prospective experiments with pre-registered presentiment hypotheses. The Go/NoGo study ^[4] does use a prospective design with a priori power analysis, and reports a significant overall effect (p = 0.024), though the effect is entirely attributable to the intuitive-thinker subgroup (p < 0.001) and the rational-thinker subgroup showed no effect — a pattern that could reflect a genuine moderator or a post-hoc partition. The retro-priming replications ^[3] did not replicate the primary psi-score hypothesis; the significant result emerged on a secondary connectivity measure with a subjective threshold.

Analysis. The primary-outcome replication picture across Bierman’s work is uneven: the physiological presentiment signal appeared in re-analyzed mainstream data and in some prospective designs, but the retro-priming behavioral paradigm failed on its pre-specified measure and yielded only secondary results ^[3]. The moderating role of thinking style (intuitive vs. rational) in ^[4] has not been independently replicated in the sources retrieved here. The connectivity analysis in ^[3] is an exploratory secondary measure introduced after the primary hypothesis was not confirmed, and the authors themselves call for further replication before treating it as a settled finding.

For broader context on how Bierman’s autoganzfeld forensic work fits into the site’s treatment of dataset audits, see the Forensic Critique of Psi Datasets page, and for his FieldREG-related independent replication, Roger D. Nelson’s profile.