Detect · Precognition
Choose before the target exists.
Precognition is perception of a future event that present information cannot supply. In Detect you commit to a card before the target has been drawn.
- Practice
- Precognition
- A session
- 24 choices
- Chance
- 25%
How to play
Step 1 of 3
Settle and choose
Four cards appear each turn. The target has not been drawn yet.
- Settle your attention and notice which card stands out. Use the colors, the symbols, or both.
- Tap it. Your choice is saved before the target is drawn.
- Nothing stands out? Tap Pass. A pass is not counted.
Step 2 of 3
See the target
The target is drawn at random and shown right away.
- A hit shows a photograph.
- On a miss, the target card lights up.
- Take in the feedback, then settle again for the next turn.
Step 3 of 3
Complete 24 choices
A session ends after 24 counted choices.
- With four cards, chance is 25%: about 6 hits in 24.
- Your result shows your hits beside chance.
- One session is one observation. Your record builds over time.
Psi Explained, Ep. 1: Precognition
The card hasn’t been drawn yet.
One minute on precognition research: card calling at Rhine’s laboratory in the 1930s, Schmidt’s four-lamp machine in 1969, the 1989 review of 309 studies, and a few turns of Detect.
The text is on screen, so it plays without sound too.
The practice
Settle
Before each turn, let your attention rest on the four cards.
Notice
Notice which card draws you. Go with the first clear impression.
Commit
Tap that card, or pass when nothing stands out.
Review
See the target, take in the feedback, and begin the next turn.
Where it comes from
In the 1930s, J. B. Rhine’s laboratory began asking people to call the order of a deck of cards before it was shuffled. In 1969, physicist Helmut Schmidt automated the idea: press one of four buttons, then a random physical process lights one of four lamps. Detect follows that design.
309
precognition studies of this kind from 1935 to 1987, by 62 investigators.
Honorton and Ferrari, 198930%
of those studies were statistically significant. Chance alone predicts 5%.
Honorton and Ferrari, 198950,000+
participants, and nearly two million individual trials.
Honorton and Ferrari, 1989
Figures are as reported in the review, which found larger effects with feedback after each trial and a short gap before the target. Later replications have had mixed results, and precognition is still debated.
How Detect is built
The four cards, the Pass button, and the photograph on a hit follow Russell Targ’s ESP teaching machine of the early 1970s. Detect moves the target to after your choice.
Your choice is saved first
A tap or a pass is recorded before anything else happens.
Then the target is drawn
One of the four cards is selected at random on your device. Until then, no target exists.
Feedback is immediate
A hit shows a photograph. Otherwise the target card lights up.
Passing is part of it
A pass is not counted, so your 24 choices are the turns where you chose to commit.
Reading your results
With four cards, chance is 25%: about 6 hits in 24 choices. One session is one observation.
- Random sequences produce runs of hits and misses on their own.
- Your statistics show your hit rate beside the 25% chance rate.
- Use each session’s feedback to guide the next.
Free and Premium
Free
- One Daily session of 24 choices every day.
Premium
- Play Again after the Daily session, as often as you like.
- Every completed session counts toward your personal statistics.
Play Detect in Psi Games
