ArtsAutosBooksBusinessEducationEntertainmentFamilyFashionFoodGamesGenderHealthHolidaysHomeHubPagesPersonal FinancePetsPoliticsReligionSportsTechnologyTravel

History of Zener Cards

Updated on February 26, 2015
Basic Zener Cards
Basic Zener Cards

Many people have heard of Zener Cards also known as ESP Cards. They may not know them by name but they are familiar with the symbols on the cards and the basic testing structure. Zener cards are a set of twenty-five cards that contain five circles, five squares, five Greek crosses, five five-pointed stars, and five cards with three wavy lines. They were developed by two psychologists by the name of Karl Zener and Dr. J. B. Rhine in the early 1930s for testing extra-sensory perception or ESP. Dr. Rhine named the cards after Karl Zener.

Zener Cards were originally made with thin, almost translucent paper. They were excited when the people who were tested actually scored very high. However, it was discovered that the reasoning for the high scores was because the people tested could see through the thin paper or the ink had bled through the paper. With a redesign, they made sure the cards could not be seen through. In fact, the subsequent deck even had an illustration of a building at Duke University printed on the back as an extra security to ensure no subjects could see through the cards.

When it comes to testing someone to see if they have ESP, there were a few different ways they conducted the test. The most basic way of testing is quite simple. First, the experimenter, the person conducting the test, would shuffle the cards. Next he would pick up a card and record the subject's, the person being tested, answers. This scenario continued until they finished the whole deck.

Many times there would be a third person in the room with a video camera. This was to ensure that the experimenter wasn't sending any kind of clues to the subject. Still not confident that cheating wasn't occurring, the testing was taken up a notch. They started to place large divider between the experimenter and the subject.

The testing was by no means done evolving. Because the experimenter would generally tell the subject if the guess was correct or not, another form of cheating began occurring. The subject would count the cards. For instance, if we know that there is five of each symbol and as each one comes up we would know there would be one less of the symbols, and so on. Of course, there was also the problem of poor shuffling. Dr. Rhine used to shuffle them by hand but later used a machine to do the shuffling.

Dr. Rhine continued to improve his testing procedures. No longer did he allow the subject to hold the cards before the test. Also, instead of using a large divider to separate the subject from the experimenter, he had them placed in separate rooms or even separate buildings to completely avoid any possibility of cheating.

Even though Dr. Rhine's testing procedures improved, he was unable to prove to the scientific community that his research supported the existence of ESP. Although, test subjects scored high in initial tests, scores were significantly lowered once all of the safeguards were in place to prevent cheating. In fact, most of his findings calculated more toward the chance of guess compared to psychic phenomenon.

working

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy

Show Details
Necessary
HubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons.
LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service.
Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)
AkismetThis is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.
Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)
CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)
Google Hosted LibrariesJavascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy)
Features
Google Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)
Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
Google ChartsThis is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)
Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Google YouTubeSome articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
PaypalThis is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)
Marketing
Google AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)