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T.
Piantanida
,
Ph.D.,
SRI
International,
E.
May,
Ph.D.
,
SRI
International;
i
(
The goal
of
the conference was
to determine
the proper
direction
for
investigating possible correlates
to psychoenergetic
functioning,
and
to recommend specific experiments
to search
for
correlates.
The primary emphasis was
on neurophysiology.
Attendee
comments are available upon request.
'
After an overview of
the Enhanced Human Performance
Investigation project by May,
the discussions centered upon metabolic
measurements
(PET)
and possible physiological
indicators
of
psychoenergetic
functioning with visual evoked response.
|p
pother
topics
that were discussed were other possible
physiological areas of
investigation,
including technical
voice analysis.
It was generally decided,
however,
that except
for
PET,
and certain
button-pressing experiments,
physiological correlates
to
the
subtle
forms
of psychoenergetic
functioning would be difficult
to
find.
'
As
a direct
result of
the conference,
the Los Alamos group
will use visual evoked response
techniques with
the MEG
to replicate
earlier successful experiments demonstrating physiological
responses
to
a
remote stimulus.
(U) A number of the participants responded to the conference in letter form.
These
letters are contained in Appendix B.
*
~
•
21.
(U)
Objective F, Task 9— Neuropsychological Assessment
(U)
During FY
1986
exploratory
work
was
begun
to
attempt
the
discovery
of
neuropsychological
correlates of psychoenergetic
function.
As
part
of that
effort,
Dr.
Ralph
Kiernan of the Stanford Medical School developed a battery of tests designed to test the function
of the
frontal lobes which he hypothesized to be
involved
in psychoenergetic
function.
As
a
follow-on
to
his
theoretical
formulation and
hypothesis
generation,
Dr.
Kiernan
tested
subjects who had participated in previous RV and Search/Dowsing studies.
His test battery was
composed mainly of scales from Guilford’s measure of intelligence, and scales were combined to
give a score
for productive ideation,
a component directly related to positive
frontal function.
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(U)
placed
it on a small empty table, and then rang a bell into the telephone, signaling to the viewer
to perceive the target.
The viewer than declared “yes," “no," or “?" and gave his response; he
then received immediate
feedback from
the experimenter.
For every
trial,
the experimenter
made
a
written
record
of the
possible
targets,
actual
target,
declared
condition,
and
viewer
response,
as well as date and time
of the
trial.
(U) The
hypothesis
being
tested
was
whether
Viewer
002
is
able
to
recognize
“contact"
with
the
target.
If
this
hypothesis
is
true,
we
would
expect
above-chance,
below-chance, and chance
results
in the
“yes,”
“no," and “?”
conditions,
respectively.
The
reason that we would expect below-chance results in the “no” condition
is that psychoenergetic
functioning
is required by the viewer
if he “knows”
that he
is not in contact with the target.
In
other words, the viewer
is willing to declare that he
is likely to be wrong.
The
trials
took place
at approximately
the
same
time every
day between January
and February
20,
1987,
with
a varying number of
trials
per
day.
Of
147
trials
in
the
"yes"
condition,
88 were
hits,
where
74 would
be expected by chance.
Of
trials
in
the
"no"
condition,
were
hits,
where
30 would be expected by chance.
Of
the
121
trials
in
the
"?"
condition,
66 were
hits,
where
61 would be expected
by chance.
The
p-values
for these
three conditions are
0.01,
0.05,
and
0.23,
respectively.
From p-values alone,
it
appears
that
the hypothesis
is
supported.
The
trend
in
the psychological
sciences
is
to use
some measure
of
"effect
size"
in conjunction with p-values.
The
reason
is
that
p-values
are sample-size dependent
and,
therefore,
may mask
important
results.
The
"effect
size"
for
the
three conditions
is
0.20,
0.21,
and
0.09,
respectively.
This result
indicates
that
the equivalent amount
of
psychoenergetic
functioning was used by Viewer 002
to determine his degree
of contact with
the
target.
We
are encouraged
by
this result because
it
represents
a modest
success
toward
the goal
of recognizing
the
source
of
"noise"
in forced-choice experiments.
(U)
During the second half of FY 1987, we conducted another series of trials of the
forced-choice
format,
using
the same
protocol
as described above
but
with
slightly
different
conditions and testing a
slightly different hypothesis.
These
trials took place from 23 February
through 21 September
1987,
a
total of 82 sessions
(one session per day
at approximately the
same time every day), with a varying number of trials per session.
Before each session the viewer
declared how he
felt, and he assessed how successfully he would contact the targets in the coming
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In FY
1987,
an experiment was conducted which successfully
replicated
this
finding.
Of eight participants
(six experienced and
two
novices),
one
scored
signif icantly
in
the
space condition,
and none
in
the
time condition.
However,
the
two
subjects who scored
the best
in
the
space condition had previously been
successful
in
that condition,
and
the
subject who scored best
in
the
time condition had previously been
successful
in
that condition.
This
suggests
that participants
are
likely
to consistently do well
in one condition or
the
other,
but
not
both.
\
9 'Since
this
is
the
third
successful
laboratory replication
of
this experiment,
it
suggests
that
this
technique
for finding
a hidden
target may be robust
enough
to use
in
t
.applications
for which
such
information
is
needed,
such as
locating
a kidnap victim
The
best subject
in
the
FY 1987 experiment
showed
a reduction
in
the area
that
would need
to
be
searched
in 72% of
the
trials
in
the
space condition,
with
an average reduction
in area
of
33%.
Previous experiments
showed
even greater reductions.
In real-world applications,
this could represent
a substantial
savings
in resources.
(U) A second search experiment was conducted in FY 1987 to see
if self-proclaimed
dowsers could find a
lost ship by searching a grid overlaid on
a map.
The object of the search
was
a sunken Spanish
galleon
called The Atocha, which was
actually found
in
1985.
The
experiment was preceded by
a real-world search
in which one
of the
participants successfully
located
another
sunken
ship
by
choosing
the
correct
locations
on
an
unmarked
grid.
Accompanied by SRI personnel,
the participant was
in
a
vessel anchored over the
site
of the
wreck at the time of the experiment.
The Atocha experiment was carried out with two sets of 25
trials
for each of
five participants, but
failed
to produce
a single significant
result.
25.
(U)
Objective H, Task
I—RA Effects on Single Alpha Particles
(U) Due to unforeseen circumstances, the alpha panicle experiment never reached a
point
where
it
was
stable
enough
to
collect
data
from human
participants.
After
careful
consideration of the cost to continue and the results of the other RA experiments for FY 1987,
it
was decided to stop work on this task.
What follows
is an engineering summary of the state of
the system
at close-out.
(U)
During FY
1987,
SRI
developed
a
novel,
position-sensitive
system
to
detect
alpha particles.
In order to reduce the cost and complexity of the system, we elected to employ
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