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First Study

To be held in Winston Salem, North Carolina, in March of 2009


written by Anita Ikonen
on March 6 2009

Objectives and Purpose


When Anita Ikonen looks at people, she experiences seeing images forming in her mind
of the inside of the person’s body and also to feel health related information from that
person. In the past she has experienced interesting correlation between the images that
she sees and with actual health information of persons. She has not experienced a single
verified inaccurate perception. There have been cases where she perceives health
information that should not be accessible to ordinary senses of perception, and also with
the way that her perceptions come about, that is, not by ordinary vision, she feels
compelled to investigate further.

The Investigation
The investigation will determine what the actual correlation is when it is checked by
people other than herself to eliminate unintentional bias as well as allow the correlation to
be checked for in unambiguous and non-descriptive ways (simple yes/no format). This
investigation aims to find out whether Ms. Ikonen acchieves a greater extent of
correlation with her reports on people’s health, than do others who attempt the same thing
by any means conceivable. If Ms. Ikonen does not acchieve an agreeably higher extent of
correlation than what most people could then this investigation will be concluded at that
and terminated. If she does appear to acchieve higher correlation than others then the
investigation proceeds toward arrangement of situations that gradually add more rigorous
test conditions and take the everyday environment of the experience into an experience in
a proper test setting.

This Study
This study is designed as the next step in this investigation. This study is not a test so
some cold reading will be available, such as obtaining clues about health information
based on a person’s body posture, movement, age, gender, appearance and other
externally visible clues. As such, this study can not provide any evidence toward having
some special ability in medical perception, regardless of the outcome of the study. The
study can, however, provide evidence against the claimed ability.
*This study provides Ms. Ikonen with additional experience of the medical perceptions.
*For her to record the perceptions in an unambiguous way on check-box format
questionnaires.
*For the event to be witnessed by reliable witnesses and not solely based on her own
accounts.
*For the correlation to be checked by others and not herself.
*To compare her correlation with that acchieved by one or two controls.
*To identify ailments that will be suitable for a test.
*To try out some test conditions and experience the perceptions under conditions that a
little bit more resemble proper test conditions than what was done before.
*To design a second study and/or a real test based on what is learned in this first study.

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Procedure
The study takes place on the public sidewalk of the city of Winston Salem. Ms. Ikonen
has checked with the city government to obtain permission to conduct this study there.
Ms. Ikonen and the participants are free to decide on the exact date and time as well as on
the exact location and may have a second session on another day if the first day is not
very productive.
The study requires two separate locations that are out of sight and sound of one
another. In the first location, one participant approaches persons of the public and says
that we are conducting a study into what health problems can be detected just by looking
at a person and asks persons to volunteer for the study. For convenience, volunteers must
be 18 years or older.
A volunteer is asked to fill in a health questionnaire. The participant takes out one
of the stacks of papers in which an information page, volunteer’s health questionnaire,
claimant’s health questionnaire, and two controls’ health questionnaires, are stapled
together. The participant then double-checks that all four questionnaires that are stapled
together have the same identification number in their top margins. The participant then
detaches the information page with the volunteer’s health questionnaire from the rest and
hands these to the volunteer. The information page stapled on top of the volunteer’s
health questionnaire provides some additional information about the study and explains
how to fill in the questionnaire.
Once the volunteer has finished filling in the form it is handed to the participant
who then puts it out of sight in a designated envelope or binder. The volunteer is asked to
have a seat and the participant makes a phone call to Ms. Ikonen to announce that a
volunteer is ready to be seen. The volunteer’s form has asked the volunteer how much
time he or she can allocate for the study with choices between 10 minutes, 20 minutes,
and 30 minutes, and the participant announces the time that was selected. Ms. Ikonen and
the one or two controls (depending on how many we were able to attain for this study)
are waiting at a second location such as behind the corner of a building and go to the first
location.
The volunteer is seen from behind to avoid eyecontact between the volunteer and
those who do the reading. There is no communication at the time of the reading. The
participant hands Ms. Ikonen the claimant’s questionnaire, and the one or two controls
are given a controls’ health questionnaire each. If Ms. Ikonen or any of the controls did
not have time to finish with their questionnaires when the time is up, or when a volunteer
decides to leave early, they should make a note of this on their questionnaires because we
want to know what ailments that were there were not detected, so if a person did not have
time to get to that question then that matter can not be assessed with those questions.
After a reading Ms. Ikonen and the controls put their pens down and fold the
questionnaires and take no more notes on their questionnaires. Any lasting impressions
that they did not have time to write on the questionnaires must be written down on a
separate paper and the identification number of the trial must be carefully written down
on these separate sheets so to identify which volunteer they pertain to. We do this so that
once the volunteer has stood up and clues about their health from movement or standing
posture that become available, health information obtained from these are not included
among the answers made in the questionnaire. The information on the separate sheets is

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for knowledge purposes only and will not count for or against the computed correlation at
the end. All of this tries to have some control over what sources of health information are
available for the questionnaires.
The health questionnaires are handed to the participant, or, most preferrably we
have a second participant on site who can hold on to these. It would be best if not all
forms are with one person. Neither Ms. Ikonen nor any of the controls may hold on to
the filled in health questionnaires after the study but may request photocopies of any or
all.
The one or two participants are encouraged to take notes on any relevant
observations of what takes place during the study. Forms with recommended things to
watch for will be provided to the participants and include questions such as, “Was there
any speaking between Ms. Ikonen, controls, volunteer during the time of this reading?”
Ms. Ikonen and the controls return to the second location and await the next
phone call for when it is time to see the next volunteer and the participant tries to recruit
another volunteer from the public.
The study is deemed over when Ms. Ikonen, the controls, and participants
mutually agree on it for any reason. Depending on arrangements, the study may employ
different participants or controls that are switched during the study, or, the participants
and controls may switch assignments if they choose to.

Results
Ms. Ikonen, the controls, and participants, agree mutually on a time and place to meet to
go through the questionnaires and compute an estimate of correlation of answers. Ms.
Ikonen might choose not to allow the entire FACT Skeptics group to attend this event,
however she expects for those who worked on the study to announce the results and
conclusions of the study at a FACT meeting to the entire FACT group. The results will
also be published on Ms. Ikonen’s website www.visionfromfeeling.com. At this stage she
expects to publish the data of all forms as well as everyone’s notes and the final results
and conclusions. Ms. Ikonen would appreciate if one or several of those who worked on
the study can read through her published results of the study and verify that it is in
accordance with the recorded data. But she realizes that website material can be altered at
any date, which is why the verification is only good for that date.

How to compute correlation


Based on what was marked in the “extent” column of the questionnaire for a particular
question, an ailment can be reported as having an extent of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5, where 0
means “no ailment”. Comparing what the volunteer answered with what Ms. Ikonen or a
control answered the correlation is obtained as follows: For every discrepancy between
the answer of the volunteer and the answer of one of the others there is a deduction of
20% from a maximum total of 100% of one point. If the answers coincide it is a 100%
correlation, or 1.0 point. If the answers are for instance two units off on the extent scale
there is a deduction of two times 20%, and 60% of a point, or 0.6 points of correlation is
acchieved.
For questions where Ms. Ikonen or a control answers “no ailment”, the correlation
is not checked for. Every question where Ms. Ikonen or a control states that the volunteer

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would have any extent of the ailment of 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 opens up a maximum of one point
for that question.
The total number of ailments that were reported as existing correspond to the total
maximum number of points acchievable. For instance, if Ms. Ikonen or a control thinks
that the volunteer had any extent of 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 of a total of any 10 ailments, then there
is a possible maximum of 10 points pertaining to that volunteer. Partial points are then
deducted based on the discrepancy acchieved.
The total percent correlation is then calculated by dividing the total points
acchieved by the total points acchievable and multiplying by a hundred. It is this number,
the total percent correlation, that is then compared between Ms. Ikonen and the controls,
to see whether Ms. Ikonen acchieves a greater correlation in her answers than do the
controls.

*Note that we are not allowed to conclude that Ms. Ikonen does not use some special
trick to acchieve correlation and so regardless of the correlation acchieved by her it does
not conclude in favor of any special ability in this particular study. If she acchieves high
correlation all it means is for this investigation to proceed toward tighter protocols. 

Conclusions to be made
1. Did Ms. Ikonen acchieve a higher total percent correlation than either or both of the
controls? By how much was her correlation higher or lower than theirs?
2. What kind of tricks or methods did the controls choose to use to try to acchieve higher
correlation and what can be said about the effectiveness of these methods?
3. What can be learned from the notes taken by Ms. Ikonen, by the controls, and by the
participants about what took place during the study?
4. Are there ailments from the questionnaire that could be useful for a test?
5. Does it seem that an ailment must be experienced by the volunteer to a certain high
extent in order for Ms. Ikonen to detect it?
6. And more.

Point-scale system:
100% gives 1.0 points
80% gives 0.8 points
60% gives 0.6 points
40% gives 0.4 points
20% gives 0.2 points
0% gives 0.0 points

The point-scale system does not promise to produce a true number-value for what the
correlation was between the answers of Ms. Ikonen or a control and with the volunteer’s
answers. What it does give is the total percent correlation which is a number that can be
compared between Ms. Ikonen and the controls to see whether her correlation was higher
than that of the controls. This is possible since Ms. Ikonen and the controls undergo the
same evaluation criteria.

Let’s hope for good weather and willing volunteers!

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Volunteer answered Ms..Ikonen.or.Control.answere Points acchieved
d
0 0 -
0 1 80%
0 2 60%
0 3 40%
0 4 20%
0 5 0%
1 0 -
1 1 100%
1 2 80%
1 3 60%
1 4 40%

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1 5 20%
2 0 -
2 1 80%
2 2 100%
2 3 80%
2 4 60%
2 5 40%
3 0 -
3 1 60%
3 2 80%
3 3 100%
3 4 80%
3 5 60%
4 0 -
4 1 40%
4 2 60%
4 3 80%
4 4 100%
4 5 80%
5 0 -
5 1 20%
5 2 40%
5 3 60%
5 4 80%
5 5 100%

Note that the procedure of this study and the way in which the point scale system is
calculated and the way in which results and conclusions are obtained are far from perfect,
or of quality scientific standard, and far from good enough for a real test. All suggestions
for improvements are most welcome and can be sent to Ms. Ikonen at
brightstar@visionfromfeeling.com and can be applied on a second study and/or the real
test of her abilities. Some criticism is not necessary: do keep in mind that this is a study
not a test, and that this is the first study out of possible more to come.

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