A self-proclaimed psychic medium claims she can determine details about a deceased person's life simply by holding a personal item that belonged to them (a practice known as psychometry).
An investigator decides to test this claim. He invites five clients to bring one personal object belonging to a deceased relative. The five clients sit in the front row of a quiet room while the investigator hands each object, one at a time, to the medium. The medium holds the object and speaks aloud her impressions of the deceased person's personality and life events. After each description is given, the owner of the object is asked to rate the accuracy of the reading on a scale from 1 (completely inaccurate) to 10 (highly accurate).
Explain how this study could be modified to make it more scientific. You should refer to potential methodological criticisms of the current procedure in your answer.
689 exam-style questions on AQA A Level Psychology Scientific processes. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.