Sources

Failing the Future: Three Unsuccessful Attempts to Replicate Bem's Retroactive Facilitation of Recall Effect

Citation Formats

General Reference

Divinity Atlas. "Failing the Future: Three Unsuccessful Attempts to Replicate Bem's Retroactive Facilitation of Recall Effect." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://www.divinityatlas.com/sources/failing-the-future-three-unsuccessful-attempts-to-replicate-bems-retroactive-facilitation-of-recall-effect.

APA Style

Divinity Atlas. (n.d.). Failing the Future: Three Unsuccessful Attempts to Replicate Bem's Retroactive Facilitation of Recall Effect. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://www.divinityatlas.com/sources/failing-the-future-three-unsuccessful-attempts-to-replicate-bems-retroactive-facilitation-of-recall-effect

BibTeX

@misc{divinityatlas-failing-the-future-three-unsuccessful-at,
  author = {Divinity Atlas},
  title = {Failing the Future: Three Unsuccessful Attempts to Replicate Bem's Retroactive Facilitation of Recall Effect},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://www.divinityatlas.com/sources/failing-the-future-three-unsuccessful-attempts-to-replicate-bems-retroactive-facilitation-of-recall-effect},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

Stuart Ritchie, Richard Wiseman and Christopher French's article in PLoS ONE, published in 2012, reports three independent, pre-registered attempts to directly replicate one experiment from Daryl Bem's 2011 Feeling the Future paper on retroactive recall, and all three found no effect. Its strength is that it is a peer-reviewed replication study, pre-registered before data collection, in a reputable open-access journal, and it became a widely cited example in psychology's broader replication crisis. Its limit is that it tests one specific experimental paradigm from Bem's work rather than the whole body of parapsychological research, so a claim about psi research generally should not be treated as settled by this single, if influential, set of null replications.

Facts

Assessment

Reliability Tier

Published in PLoS ONE in 2012, a peer reviewed, pre-registered replication study that became a widely cited example in psychology's broader replication crisis, treated at the top tier as peer reviewed scientific literature.

Notes

Three pre-registered direct replication attempts of one Bem 2011 experiment, all null.

Citation

Author

Stuart J. Ritchie, Richard Wiseman, Christopher C. French

Publisher

PLoS ONE, Vol. 7

Publication Year

2012

Source Type

peer-reviewed article

Claims Backed By This Source (22 claims)

This source backs 22 claims across the atlas. As facts: 10 well-attested, 4 popular myth - corrected. As cited relationships: 2 holds, 2 critiqued Here. Plus 4 entities citing it as a general reference with no single fact or relationship attached.

Disposition By Topic

Sources, 7 claims: 7 well-attested.
Psi Phenomena, 5 claims: 1 well-attested, 1 popular myth - corrected, 2 holds, 1 general references.
Historical Figures, 3 claims: 1 popular myth - corrected, 1 critiqued Here, 1 general references.
Studies, 3 claims: 1 popular myth - corrected, 1 critiqued Here, 1 general references.
Articles, 2 claims: 2 well-attested.
Disciplines, 2 claims: 1 popular myth - corrected, 1 general references.