I've read alot of books on trading, but Murphy's isn't one of them, so can't comment on what he talks about.
Here's a link to an article that talks about "studies"...
http://www.geocities.com/t_ride9/technical.html
(disclaimer: I have nothing to do with this site, just pulled it off an internet search, you could find others of interest by doing a similar search)
My own experience is that technical analysis works for traders.