Don't Let 'Em Take The Psi Out Of You

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If I was to begin by pointing out that *real* psychological tests are not available to the general public, this would tell you something about Know Your Own Personality.

Fortunately, Eysenck and Wilson quite honestly point out that the scores are "suggestive rather than definitive; they are approximate, ratherthan precise and accurate ... we hope they will serve to amuse and stimulate you".

So, was I amused and/or stimulated? In true psychologist's fashion, I can honestly answer, "Yes and no".

Waiting for the tape to load was about as stimulating as an undertaker's convention. The program takes a few minutes, and then questions are loaded in batches of 70. Each of the three tests contains 210 questions so I made several cups of coffee while I tested myself.

On the other hand, I found some of the questions quite amusing. For example, "Are you careful to swim between the lifesaver's flags at the beach?" is hard to take seriously if, like me, you can't swim.

In addition to allowing you to test your own personality the notes also suggest some other uses for the program. For example, answer the questions as you think your spouse might and compare the results with your spouse's actual results.

I've known games like this to ruin marriages, particularly with questions like: "Would you consider going to a wife swapping party?" so be warned.

The results are presented in bar-chart form and you can opt for comments to be made on your scores. These remind me a little of newspaper astrological predictions - general enough to be right some of the time but occasionally completely wrong.

For example, my wife was more than a little amused to see me described as "enjoying all kinds of physical activity".

You can save the results for future reference and print them out if you have a suitable printer.

If you're the sort of person who enjoys answering questionnaires, you and your friends could well derive some fun from this package. However if you score as high as me on impatience scales then make sure you pay the extra £3 for the disc version.

Know Your Own Psi-Q begins with a quiz to assess your "psychic inclinations, awareness and possible potential". I don't score very highly on this, but I'm prepared to keep my scientific mind open on the general question of psychic powers.

To help you get in the right frame of mind, the main menu offers a relaxation option which you should choose before you start the guessing games. You begin by inputting your pulse rate, and the machine then bleeps at that rate.

The bleeps gradually get slower, the claim being that this "...induces your body to reduce its pulse rate in line with the bleeps".

The mechanism by which this induction occurs isn't really explained, and I got the distinct impression as I gazed at the screen for three minutes that someone was taking the psi out of me.

Two of the games offer the choice between testing for clairvoyance or precognition. If you choose to. be clairvoyant, the micro makes its decisions and then you attempt to match them. In precognition, you attempt to predict which decisions the micro will make before it makes them.

I'm not sure how you could separate successful precognition from possible psychokinesis. I mean, maybe you're not predic ting the outcomes, maybe you're determining them. Of course, either is a good trick if you can do it.

One option allows you to keep records of your ability over time which means that you could - for example — see whether psychic ability fluctuates with biorhythms.

> Personally, I'm investigating the effects of different drinks on psychic ability. So far, gin and tonic doesn't seem to be working but I'm slowly increasing the dosage. That's dedication for you.

Overall, then, these packages do offer something a little out of the ordinary and may well amuse and stimulate you. Don't take them too seriously though, otherwise you might become a psychologist - and look where it got me.

Cliff McKnight