Rhine Game

Rules

This game shows you cards bearing different symbols. One of these cards has the symbol that the game selects – randomly – as the solution symbol. It is this very symbol that you must identify using your intuition.

The game starts with a choice of two cards. As you move along and succeed, the number of cards will increase. It will upgrade from two to three cards, then four, and so on, hence making the challenge harder and more interesting. You must succeed three times in a row with a certain number of cards to reach a higher card number. But watch out ! If you make wrong decisions you’ll step down to a lesser choice of cards.

You can play in two modes : the normal mode and the inverse mode. In the normal mode the cards are placed facing up ; you can see the symbols. In the inverse mode, you’re being shown the solution symbol and you must identify which of the cards, turned over, also bears this symbol.

The little twist of the game

This game uses a deck of cards called « Zener cards », after Karl Zener, a researcher in psychology who designed its symbols. Originally there are five of them : square, cercle, waving lines, star, triangle. And traditionally the player must perceive among the 5 possibilities which is the correct one.

In the original version of the game, the player must always choose between 5 cards ; which is a rather repetitive task. And – as always in such cases – the ability to focus decreases rapidly because of the boredom it induces. As a consequence, performance declines and training takes longer. In spite of these drawbacks, the first statistically significative experiment, published in 1932, involving 24 individuals subjected to 800 trials, shows a success rate of 26% instead of the 20% expected from chance alone (i.e. a hit rate of 1 out of 4 instead of 1 out of 5) !

In the game version proposed here, starting with two cards and then switching to a larger number of cards associated with your intuitive success, allows to bring an immediate feedback on your progression. Also, we’added to the 5 classic Zener cards a sixth special card with a heart. Whenever this symbol is the solution card and you find it, you immediately climb to the next upper level.

All this will provide more thrill and will enable you to boost your intuition even more.

Now, the ball’s in your court !

Why Rhine ?

This game is the replication of a long series of experiments done by Joseph B. Rhine, of Duke University in the USA. From the late 20’s to 1965, J.B. Rhine and his colleagues have conducted a set of experiments, which have also been subsequently reproduced in numerous other university labs.

At first the exercise would involve two persons : one looking at the card on top of the stack, and the other – behind a screen or in another room – intuitively perceiving and telling which symbol he or she felt was on the card. When this was done, the first person would put the card back within the deck, and the same operation was repeated : this person would take the new card on top of the stack and watch it, while the other person was to tell which symbol was there…

Quickly, researchers noted that the first individual wasn’t required for the second – the person guessing intuitively – to obtain statistically significative results. Beside, from the late 1930’s on, the protocol implied to conduct the exercise in a double blind way. This means that noone knew, during the trials, which cards were to be perceived ; everything was designed so as to circumvent any experimental bias or flaw.

Rhine’s scientific investigations have been the first of a very long list, showing that everybody uses efficiently his or her intuition when facing a choice situation.