Psi and perception without awareness : a new comparison

Psi processing is commonly regarded as unconscious, operating outside the awareness of the individual. If this is the case, then it is possible to make a comparison between psi as a psychological process and other unconscious mental phenomena. The phenomena most often compared to psi is that of perception without awareness (PWA; see, e.g. Beloff, 1967; Roney-Dougal, 1986; Schmeidler, 1986). Despite the apparent close association between psi and PWA, it has been over 15 years since any systematic research was conducted comparing the phenomena, and the field of PWA has changed considerably during this time. The current thesis makes a new comparison between psi and PWA, taking into consideration the recent methodological advances in the latter. Experiments la and lb used a word association paradigm developed by Stanford (1973). In this study, homophones were used, the interpretation of which may be influenced by unconscious primes. This paradigm was initially developed as a nonintentional psi test. Experiment la replicated the experiment using psi as a biasing stimulus. Although a significant main effect was not found, there was a trend in the hypothesised direction. Furthermore, there was evidence suggestive of an experimenter effect. Post hoc analysis revealed a "response bias" effect, whereby less common responses were associated with more psi "hits". Experiment lb was an attempt to influence interpretation of the homophones using an unconscious auditory stimulus. This study introduces a new technique for masking stimuli with white noise. Additionally, the "exclusion" task implemented was the first of its kind in a study of auditory PWA. Results of this study failed to reveal any unconscious influence on the homophone interpretation. Experiments 2a and 2b focus on an effect first demonstrated in PWA research. Known as "false recognition", the effect demonstrates that when a stimulus is viewed outside of awareness, it can influence recognition memory in such a way that conscious perception cannot. Experiment 2a was a replication of this effect, whereby participants viewing a biasing stimulus outside of awareness tended to "falsely recognise" this stimulus when it was presented in a recognition test. Experiment 2b was designed to investigate whether a similar effect on recognition memory could be obtained using psi as a biasing stimulus. Participants saw a large list of words before being given and "old/new" recognition test. On half of the "new" trials, a "sender" was attempting to psychically influence the participant to respond "old" (i.e. falsely recognise). No significant main effect was found, although non-significant gender interactions were observed. Study 3 combined the most promising aspects of the previous studies in a repeated measures design. The results from experiment la were not replicated, while a replication of study 2a was successful. Various personality variables were also included. There was no correlation between performance on psi and PWA tasks, and the personality measures did not support the hypotheses. Gender, however, appeared to be an important factor in the psi task. Results of the studies are discussed and the validity of the comparison is re-assessed. Together, these studies represent a new approach to the comparison between psi and PWA, and it is hoped that further research will be sensitive to developments in the PWA field.