tales of an ordinary girl

Last night I watched the episode from Friday and it was just as unscientific as the first one. I think all of them are going to follow the same pattern. At least they didn't have a grieving family for the psychics to take advantage of this episode.

The four contestants this week were Joe, Lynn, Sylvana, and Nerysa. The three tasks were picking out a criminal from a lineup, matching dog owners with their dogs, and reading the scene of a celebrity death in Hollywood.

Task #1: Criminal Lineup
For the criminal lineup, one man with a criminal past and four men with clean records were each put in a jail cell. The psychics had to pick which one they thought was a criminal. They had a 1 in 5 chance of correctly guessing the guy with the criminal past. Let's see how they did.

Joe was up first. He walked down the row of cells looking at each person. I don't think he touched anyone, but I can't remember for sure. He picked the guy in the third cell, who turned out to be the guy with the criminal past. Joe was awarded 25 points.

As the guy stepped out to talk to Joe my husband pointed out that his tattoos looked like prison tattoos. That might be a give away. Maybe it was just a lucky guess. Let's see how the other psychics do.

Sylvana went next and she decided she didn't want to touch any of the guys in their cells. Her explanation later was that she might pick up on the energy in the cells and not on the energy that the guys were projecting. Nice excuse! After a few minutes she touched the guys anyway when she didn't feel comfortable with her decision. In the end, she picked the motivational speaker, not the guy with the criminal past. When asked she said the guy just seemed to have a false aura about him. Sylvana was awarded 0 points.

Nerysa went down the rows tentatively, although she ruled out the first guy, a preacher, right away. In fact, everyone ruled out the preacher right away. In the end she picked a special ed teacher incorrectly and was awarded no points.

Lynn was last and she pulled out a notebook of automatic writing to look at before she walked down the row of cells. She had written something about a brother with drugs, 4 years and 4 months, and a tattoo with wings and a snake. The narrator lets us know that in fact the guy with the criminal past had spent 4 years and 4 months in prison and he had a brother with a drug problem. Would her automatic writing help her pick the correct guy? No, obviously the spirits didn't give her enough information to go on like telling her, "he's in the third cell" or something more obvious like that. She chose the therapist. She looked more closely at the guy with the criminal past and his tattoo (SUR, I think) and said she should have associated it with the snake image she had been getting. She was awarded no points even though she thought she should get partial credit for her automatic writing.

So each of the psychics chose a different person. The spirits must be favoring Joe and giggling maniacally about the other psychics that they've misled.

Task #2: Match Pets to Pet Owners
For the next task five pets are lined up next to each other in a park and five pet owners stand nearby with cardboard standies of themselves that the psychics have to place next to their dogs. Of course this is perfect for cold reading and all of the psychics look back at the owners each time they place a cardboard standy to see his or her reaction.

Also, as Rebecca pointed out last week, there is a 1 in 4 chance of getting them all correct. They can either get 1 correct, 2 correct, 3 correct, or 5 correct. It is not possible to get 4 correct and 1 incorrect.

Sylvana was first and she placed all of the standies correctly. At one point she got on the ground on her knees and tried to feel what the dogs were feeling. But before making her choices final she switched two of the standies. She ended up scoring 3 out of 5 correct, or 15 points. When questioned later in the van by the other psychics she claimed to get 5 out of 5 correct, but failed to mention that officially she only got 3 out of 5 correct because she changed her guess.

Joe or Nerysa went next. I can't remember which, but they both got 2 correct, or 10 points. Both of them correctly guessed a lady with a white dog and another guy. Both of them used methods that seemed like cold reading. They'd make guesses and then look over at the owners for a reaction.

Lynn was last and she was babbling about how fluffy dogs have to go with girls. The host asked her at one point if it was all just logic and she replied, "I only get what I am supposed to get." In the end she only matched up one dog with its owner and scored 5 points.

Task #3: Celebrity Death
The last task was to identify as much information about a room where a celebrity death occurred as possible. Each of them were blindfolded and led into a room. The viewers are told that this was the room that Janis Joplin died in from a drug overdose. A man familiar with the case walks us through what happened that night. Each of the psychics are allowed to hold a sealed envelope with a picture (poster from the size) of Janis during their time in the room.

I'm skeptical. This room is probably visited or at least the hotel is pointed out on numerous tours in Hollywood. The psychics might be blindfolded, but they know they're in Hollywood and they know this is a celebrity death. It's not hard to generalize details like that.

Nerysa went first. Points to her for crying and identifying emotionally with the guy judging her. She pointed out the place that the body had been found which was between the beds. She also said it had happened in September. It actually happened in October, but the judge gave her points for getting "the fall" in general. He also gave her points for saying that the woman had written a journal because she was a song-writer. He obviously wasn't very skeptical.

Sylvana was next. She pinpointed how the body had been found and gave general themes that surround most Hollywood stories (drugs, alcohol, rock 'n roll). Gee, do think because they were in Hollywoood that she might be able to make some reasoned guesses.

Joe was shown third and he missed the ball completely. He said that a man had murdered a woman with a gun and then killed himself. He pointed to the area between the beds as the place of death. Then he asked for a glass of water and said he was too shaken to continue. I think he suspected he missed the mark when the host didn't respond to his psychic observations.

Lynn went last and she also guessed the place of death was between the beds. She also guessed it was a female, drugs and alcohol were involved, and a few other general facts. In the end she kept saying she was getting the name "Anna" and a "J". The judge, of course, said "Anna sort of sounds like Janis and the J is definitely true." How about actually getting the name correct?

The Results
The points were revealed in the end. Nyrisa received 24 points for a total of 34, but it wasn't enough to move on. She was eliminated from the competition. Sylvana received 28 points which was enough to give her the highest overall score of 43. She will be competing in the next round. The last spot was between Joe and Lynn. Joe had the most points from the first task, but he completely missed the mark on the last task. He was only awarded 4 points, bringing his total to 39. That meant that Lynn needed a 40 to move on. And my husband was the psychic predicting she would get 40, and she did. Wow, maybe he should try out for the show! Poor Joe was eliminated.

Viewer Participation
At each commercial break they show items and ask the viewers to use their psychic powers to determine the outcome. I don't know how this is done, but I feel like the show is suggesting one of the outcomes to the viewers and then selecting that, maximizing the number of viewers that will get it right. Last week I guessed all three correctly. Let's see how my husband and I do this week.

At the first break they show a woman deciding between three dresses - a pink sun dress, a beige dress, and a white sun dress and ask the viewers which one she will pick. Matt and I both say pink. After the commercial break it's revealed that she picks the pink dress.

At the second break they show three identical red candles and ask the viewers which one will be blown out. Matt and I both guess the right candle. After the commercial break it's revealed that the left candle is blown out. I guess you can't win them all, even with my super-duper 4 out of 5 psychic intuition so far.

At the third break they show three bottles of nail polish and ask which bottle the woman having her nails painted will choose. I select the red bottle since she has a red stone in her ring and it will match that way. Matt won't select because he doesn't know anything about nail polish. After the commercial break it's revealed that she picks the red nail polish. I'm right, I'm right!! I'm psychic!!

OK, so I know that there has to be another reason why my lucky guesses are mostly always correct. I'll have to do some research.

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