Yes it's a scam...how it fools anyone I don't know...I have a degree in Behavioural Psych, and I remember these experiments from first year...there have been thousands of studies on this...from the early psychology of Pavlov...to WWII survival tricks...you name it...I think Space Jam had something like this...ahh yes..."Michaels Secret Stuff"
Aquaguru, you nailed it. It's nonsense.
Gioguy21, the fact that you knew about the experiment at all, throws all psych data out the window. I would imagine for an accurate statistical study of this it would have to include at LEAST 25 bracelets, and hundreds of balance tests.....a humans learning curve is very very steep at the outset of any movement pattern, and then plateaus..subjects in a study would have to achieve a level of balance with no bracelets, so as to determine whether the bracelets had an effect...triple blind study?
Also, there is nothing fake about the placebo effect, it is as real as it gets. There is just no relationship to the tested variable (in this case the bracelet). The difficult part is determining which unknown variable the performance gain/loss is attributed too...
Cheers all and some great comments,