2010 Vol. 74(2) 323-333
Editor:
John A. Palmer, Ph.D.
Copyright:
Parapsychology Press
Citation
Alvarez, F. (Article). (2010). Higher Anticipatory Response at 13.5 ± 1 H Local Sidereal Time in Zebra Finches. Journal of Parapsychology, 74(2), 323-333.
Article
Higher Anticipatory Response at 13.5 ± 1 H Local Sidereal Time in Zebra Finches
Fernando Alvarez
The ability for precognition in relation to local sidereal time (LST) was explored in 25 adult female zebra finches, Taeniopygia guttata. Their anticipatory response to a startle sound stimulus was tested in 2-hour segments at 13.5 ± 1 h LST, a period found by Spottiswoode (1997a) to correlate with maximum success in anomalous responses of humans, and at 18 ± 1 h LST, a period of low success. Birds were put individually in a testing cage, and after an accustoming period of 20 min, 10 randomly ordered “stimuli” were presented at 3-min intervals: 5 audio startle stimuli and 5 control moments of silence. Subjects were filmed and, in a double-blind fashion, the frequency of their behavior (change of gaze direction and locomotion) was registered 0-6 seconds immediately before stimulus presentation and before the controls. The results showed that at 13.5 ± 1 h LST, during the prestimulation period, the frequency of change of gaze direction was significantly higher and that of locomotion was significantly lower than their frequencies during the controls. At 18 ± 1 h LST the trend was the same as during 13.5 ± 1 h, although the difference in prestimulation versus control of gaze direction was slight and nonsignificant, and that of locomotion was only marginally significant.
Keywords:
birds, gaze, locomotion, precognition, sidereal time