Approved For Release 2000/08/15
: CIA-RDP96-00792R000701 040007-9
THE CONCEPT OF THE TARGET
Robert
L Morris
Psychology Department
University of Edinburgh
7 George Square
Edinburgh
EH8
9JZ
ABSTRACT
aue m part to early research suggesting,
for ESP
at-
physica
]
?a?gefs
• 33
thrle InLr^ockl^'sys?^
the
.
g,
S/
With
fuller
awareness
of
the
many comDlPxiHoo
involved,
we may develop
a
clearer picture
of whether their
research
sfaoeSr^“
are
irrelevant
for
our
functioning,
or wheTher w/may b^de^ing^ithm^lt ivll P3i
t
Car^
1C
s
a
y“ 0
e
n
ms
S/
3temS '
^p^ecifiT^artfcu^^iSs"^
220
Approved For Release 2000/08/15
: CIA-RDP96-00792R000701 040007-9
Approved For Release 2000/08/15
: CIA-RDP96-00792R000701 040007-9
THE CONCEPT OF THE TARGET
INTRODUCTION
One of the most basic concepts
in experimental parapsychology
is that of "the target".
In most of our studies,
following
the metaphor,
we designate someone as the psychic,
select out
a chunk of the environment
as
a target,
set
it up and ask our
psychics
to aim
at
it
and hit
it.
For ESP procedures,
we
know we hit the target because the ball we threw bounces back
to us bringing useful information.
For PK procedures,
we
know
we
hit
the
target
because
we
then
observe
that
the
target has fallen over.
The target
in short
is the part of
the
environment
with
which
the
subject
is
supposed
to
interact
"psychically".
The
target
has
been defined formally
as
well.
The
first
issue of the Journal of Parapsychology to have a glossary was
Volume
One,
Issue
Three.
It defined
a target card
as
"The
card which the percipient
is
attempting
to perceive
(i.e.
to
call,
or
otherwise
indicate
a knowledge
of)".
A target
deck
is
"The
deck
of
cards
the
order
of
which
the
subject
is
calling".
There
is
no
separate definition
for target per
se.
In the most recent Journal
of Parapsychology ,
a target
is
defined as:
"In
a test of ESP, the object or event that the
percipient
attempts
to
identify
through
information
paranormally acquired;
in
a test
of PK,
the physical
system,
or
a prescribed outcome thereof,
that the
subject attempts to
influence
or bring
about".
Other
recent
definitions
such
as
those
in the Handbook of Parapsychology and
in Foundations
of
Parapsychology resemble the latter
- they are fairly flexible
as to the nature of the target but emphasize
that it is the
focus of an effort of some sort,
a "trying" or "attempting".
In what probably
is
the most
thorough and thoughtful
attempt
to define the terms of parapsychology,
Michael Thalbourne's A
Glossary of Terms used in Parapsychology
(1982),
target
is
defined
as
"In
a
test
of extrasensory perception,
the object
or event,
physical
or mental,
constituting the information to
be
paranormally
acquired
by
a
percipient;
in
a
test
of
psychokinesis, the physical system,
or
a prescribed outcome
thereof,
which the
subject
is
attempting
to
influence
or
bring about".
For PK, the concept is the same.
For ESP, the
flexibility
is
retained,
with the target being any designated
source
of information
and the
acquisition
of information
being the process by which the subject accomplishes a goal or
task.
The task element
is
still there
("to be
acquired")
but
it
is no longer necessarily linked to
an active
or deliberate
effort by
a percipient
or
receiver.
ESP
studies
with
covert
targets have been acknowledged thereby.
Somebody
(e.g. the
experimenter)
is still setting aside a target and defining
a
task,
but
the
percipient
need
not
be
aware
of
it
or
consciously oriented toward
it.
PK studies
can
also
have
221
Approved For Release 2000/08/15
: CIA-RDP96-00792R000701 040007-9
Approved For Release 2000/08/15
CIA-RDP96-00792R000701 040007
recent
target
s
still
covert
targets,
as
in animal
studies
where
an RNG
(obvion^i™
tn
t
f
hL
anima
i
)
la llnkad t0 ™environmental*
H
t0
t ^le
needs
the
organism.
Yet
the
befna
th°p
nS/
f PK
h/ve
Sti11 stained the idea of
a
being
the
focus
of
an
attempt
of
some
sort.
It'
something the psychic
is
trying to
hit.
" ibh
of
designated
S
target
I
'as
1:a °ti0n
f beCween designated psychic and
disposition such as
a conditioned fear or attraction
f
cSaWe
e
of
nt
o
9e
H
erat °r
(REG)
'
3 lablle system of some' “or
capable
of
producing
events
that
are
relevant
to
the
disposition
of
the
first
system.
There
isThus
stilf »
motivational
aspect,
but
no
need
for
specific
effnii
a
F?r
t
?K
Pt
tS«" RFr
t
'hS Part ° f the disposed system or organism
within^t^ o
RpPrl
'^
1^
1,
e^
t^d
a
tonf orrnirf^systems a^e^ocatei
can inflX e^ren^^^LS^^^o^^ ^Tse
?, JZSZS i
h
s
aV
not
a
SSST?he ?oFo?££g
1 ”° n .committal about any causative role of that aspect
tmues
use
the
term
"target"
to
desianat-p
tui
*
aspect
in his later writings.
For Stanford ^nd
€n
+-k
r._ABraUd
1981 ^
using the conformance model,
taraets
ara
regarded as systems rather than as just one discrete ?hunk nf
the environment.
The ESP target
for Stanford
A ??
° f
the di<!Dn<iiHnno
rs-p
+. v, „
uaiycu
iur &canrord is defined by
une Dispositions of those involved,
and may in nrinrinio
conformJnce'!Vlr0nmental
aSpeCtS
contribu^
t 0
P
the ^fna?
The
concept
of the target has seemed to chance
nradnaii,,
espeSLl
ry
a
?oi
nC
Es
e
p
aSl
,n9lY tf”?'*
•»“
S
I
%
f ° r
E ? P '
less
tied
down
to
specific
physical
events and more tied to systems
and information.
Y
TARGET RESEARCH
say*
"vaguene^
"
)
o /th ^
in05easin9 flexibility
(some might
vagueness
)
of the target concept
is the result
of th*
findings
from
a
sizable number
of studies from the
1930s
including Rhine's
seminal
work,
to
the present
The pic2u?4
Approved For Release 2000/08/15
: cS^-RDP96-00792R000701 040007-9
Approved For Release 2000/08/15
: CIA-RDP96-00792R000701 040007-9
that emerged was that
the physical properties
of targets
seemed not to matter,
but their psychological salience
for
the
organism
(generally
a
person)
did.
This,
plus
the
stronger
findings
relating psi
success
to
state
and trait
organism variables,
turned the
focus
of attention toward the
organism and away from the physical environment.
It also fed
quite nicely into the Rhinean notion that psi was
a mental
property,
of a nonphysical mind,
and that psychic functioning
was not
explainable through physical principles.
A concise
presentation
of
this
argument
can
be
found
in
Chapter Four of Rhine and Pratt
(1962).
At the start,
they
J or
* he
last
two
decades
it
has
been possible
to
define the
field
of parapsychology
in
a
clear-cut
fashion
as
one that deals with phenomena not explainable by physical
principles.
There
is
a great part
of mental
life that may or
may not
be nonphysical,
but parapsychology
at the present
stage
is
not
concerned
with
effects
for
which
the
interpretation
is ambiguous.
In order to be considered
as
parapsychological
the
phenomena
must
be
demonstrably
nonphysical".
They then
go
on
to build their case
on the
basis of
a consideration of the
"facts" about targets and
relat lons hip with
the
subject.
According
to
them,
distance
between
percipient
and
target
does
not
seem
to
matter,
at
least
for
ESP.
Successful
series have been
carried
out
oyer
sizable
distances,
hundreds
and
even
thousands of miles, with no apparent decline.
Precognition
procedures have also seemed to work quite well,
in that the
target
can apparently be
an event
or object
in the future.
Thus the spatial and temporal relationship between subject
c* oes
not
appear
to
constrain
success.
Additionally,
target complexity does not appear to matter.
Eor
instance,
they
argue,
ESP would seem
to be necessary
for
success
in
most,
if
not
all
PK
experiments
in
that
the
subject must know where and when to apply whatever force is
being used to accomplish the task.
You've got to know what
to
do and then
do
it.
That's complex.
(Although they do not
cite
it
specifically,
by
this
time
Foster's
(1940)
work
indicating that blind matching results were very similar to
those of open matching, despite the increased complexity of
the
former,
was
quite
well
known.)
Rhine
and Pratt
add,
"Perhaps the most rationally reassuring of all the types of
evidence
of the nonphysical
nature
of psi
is
the
range of
target material on which it is capable of functioning; that
is, the range of stimuli or starting points with which it can
deal
(and for which some physical theory of intermediation
would have to be provided)".
They note that successes have
been
had
with
targets
of
a
great
variety
of
materials,
sizes,
shapes,
and so
on.
In
short,
the
physical
characteristics
of
the
targets,
including
the
physical
characteristics
of
whatever
barriers
appeared
to
separate
organism
and
target
were
labelled
223
Approved For Release 2000/08/15
: CIA-RDP96-00792R000701 040007-9
Approved For Release 2000/08/15
: CIA-RDP96-00792R000701 040007-9
irrelevant.
During the preceding
years,
target
features
had
been increasingly regarded as such by many of the researchers
in the
field,
"reassuringly"
so
for those
inclined
to
identify
parapsychology
as
studying
"phenomena
not
explainable by physical principles".
s °m ® r ® search ® rs
,
unconvinced
that
psi
was
nonphysical
but
regarded
the
experimental work to date
as valid nevertheless
valid.
Most
still generally found themselves acknowledging that so far
there
was
no
solid
evidence
that
the
physical
characteristics
of
the
target
do
matter.
There
were
exceptions,
of
course,
such
as
Asis
(1956)
who
provided
evidence that ESP scores may
in fact decline with distance
(but
see
Morris,
1980,
for
a
critique).
The
upshot
of
this
was
that,
for
both philosophical
and
empirical
reasons,
researchers
shifted their attention
increasingly to psychological
rather than physical variables.
That was where the action seemed to
be,
where
the
functional
relationship and correlations seemed to be emerging when they
emerged
at
all.
An
important
consequence
was
that,
in
planning research,
in conducting
it
and
in describing the
procedures
used,
researchers
paid
less
attention
to
the
physical characteristics
of the target,
especialy
for ESP
studies.
In
research
reports,
these
characteristics
for the
most
part
were
and
are
underdescribed.
Psychologically
salient target properties are often described in detail,
in
keeping with the fact that many studies have found evidence
that such psychological properties can affect results
(see
Palmer,
1978,
for
a
summary).
Various
aspects
of target
preparation and the barriers between target and subject are
also usually
described,
since they relate to the
adequacy
of
the
design
of
the
study.
It
should
also
be
noted
that,
especially
in recent
years,
there have been more people
from
physics and engineering in parapsychology.
They tend to be
more
open
to
physics-based theories,
are
more
knowledgeable
about physical variables and how to describe them,
and thus
tend to
be
more thorough
in'their descriptions
of the
physical
characteristics
of
targets,
especially
for
PK
studies,
where much of their efforts
are concentrated.
Social
scientists
describe
people
well,
physical
scientists
describe targets well.
A few are good at both.
SOME CONCEPTUAL PROBLEMS REGARDING ESP TARGETS
As
noted
above,
ESP targets have been underemphasized
_ in
recent years,
in part because research has failed to define
limiting characteristics.
Attention has been redirected away
from targets, in terms of their properties and in the thought
given
to
them
conceptually.
Yet,
just
as
the
analogous
concept of the stimulus
in psychology has recently come
into
question,
likewise
it may be time to reconsider exactly what
we mean by
a target and what
role
it plays,
in controlled
224
Approved For Release 2000/08/15
: CIA-RDP96-00792R000701 040007-9
Approved For Release 2000/08/15
: CIA-RDP96-00792R000701 040007-9
this^aper^iTl ex^f] o'”
a"ecdotal materla1 '
The remainder
of
research and design our future studies
more effectively
P
^ps;;ff==s==~|
IspeoL
' o
a
f tZ
eSl igf
SeleCtS and designates
an
P
aspecfoi
in?estiaator „„„
®nvironm «nt
to
serve
as
target
The
works with the LeSt
m
o?
n °
‘>e
. the actual experimenter who
®
j
tn the ag®nt or Percipient.
In
a broader sense
in
ffL,gl^Sn
exP er iment there are
one
or more observers
(including experimenters),
aware
of
the
proceedings
whA
taraet ‘‘t?
,."6 und? r standin g
: of what has beSn designated as
target.
If communication among them is good, thev will
3 n
agree.
A skilled pseudopsychic may attempt
to
interrupt
the
agreed-upon protocol, however,
and force a reLtfrpretat^n
targei actuall y ™s.
This may occur during JSS
target blocked
but°acces S
iC
to
f
^
"Mother
potent ill
target" systJm
r
n
a'
failure*
i^o^ success.
iS
loosely
n<
d^f ined^'until"
‘Sm
“£ *
advance
a^f aT^s^'e oXelVeV^oZVi ilV^tTcL *
aponde
*Lce
,or matchuP between organism and environment
?d declares
that
aspect
of the environment
after the
Jac*
to have been
a
target.
The designation
of target
is
of
arblt
fary and does not allow mathematical analysis
of
the odds against
chance" of such
a matchup occurring
It
is important
for us to appreciate the factLHhat affect
a
.fter the - fact desi 9
,nat ions
as they are vital
to
our
understanding of the contribution of anecdotal material to
our understanding of psi processes.
material to
fS^
her
T . SSUe
con<
:erns
th® distinction between target and
task.
In
an experiment,
an investigator designates
a taraet
and assigns
a task declaring
a particular kind
0 f interaction
tarat ^ I^ESP
per
.cipien t
with respect
to
the
S 9®„ a
*
.ESP
^asks '
the Percipient
is expected to
respond
tariff
Tie
.but
. not
. necessarily
all
characteristics
of
P
the
Any
k,a
^riers designed to prevent ordinary exchange
between percipient
and target
must
be tailored
to
the
of
e
svmh?i Q°f the task.
If
I am asked to guess the identities
of
s y mbols on a deck of ESP cards,
that and that only is my
,sk
;
Whether the cards
are made
of plastic or cardboard
is
t relevant to my task and knowing which will not help me.
Approved For Release 2000/08/15
: CIA-RDP96-00792R000701 040007-9
This raises the question of how to handle target anomalies
that
are not directly relevant to the formally designated
task.
Roll
(1976) brought Julio Vasquez,
the RSPK agent of
the Miami poltergeist
case,
back to North Carolina to undergo
various tests.
.
He was presented with dice
in
a rotating cage
and asked to influence their behaviour as the cage rotated
and
they
tumbled
from
end
to
end.
Although
he
was
unsuccessful,
one end of the dice cage fell off twice during
the experiment.
The dice
cage and
dice,
as
a target system
showed evidence of being influenced but not
in
a task-related
way.
Since the
cage
itself
was
not
directly part
of the
task,
it was
not
extensively
Inspected,
checked or described
in advance and the investigators felt unable to regard what
happened as solid evidence for PK.
A followup session was
conducted,
but with no
further anomalies.
Was the target
system influenced,
and if so was it related to some sort of
secondary, non-explicit task?
We must be careful here,
and
avoid declaring after the fact that any system producing an
anomaly must have been
a target even though we didn't realise
it at the time.
On the other hand,
we would be foolish to
ignore
a target-related anomaly completely just because
it
was
not part of the formally designated task.
Although
the
target
is
a
portion
of
the
environment
specifically
designated
by
an
investigator
as
part
of
an
exploration
of psychic
functioning,
the research protocol
itself
involves
an
eventual
comparison
of two descriptions.
One is
a description of a set of events in an organism,
the
other
a description
of
a
set
of environmental
events,
of
those aspects of the target relevant to the task.
As we have
seen,
the latter has become
a somewhat
flexible but vague
area conceptually.
It may be useful to view it as composed
of three interlocking systems.
One
is the target
system,-
which is the system of all representations of task-relevant
information.
It
can extend considerably beyond the system
envisaged
by
the
investigator,
including
additional
representations
of the
target,
coding
sheets,
experiences
of
various observers,
and so on.
A second system is the target
determinant
system,
composed
of the various
events,
both
formal
and
informal,
serving
as
factors
determining
any
elements
in
the
target
system
itself.
Sometimes
components
of the target
determinant
system
contain
enough
information
to be regarded as part of the target system itself.
A third
system
is the target description system,
the system of events
generated by
various elements of the other two systems to
produce
the
information
that
will
finally
be
used
by
observers
to compare with organism events
and define success
or failure.
Such systems can be made
fairly simple
in well-
controlled studies, particularly restricted choice studies.
When applied to
free response
procedures,
such as remote
viewing,
they can become more complex.
226
Approved For Release 2000/08/15
: CIA-RDP96-00792R000701 040007-9
Approved For Release 2000/08/15
: CIA-RDP96-00792R000701 040007-9
evaluations
06^
S
psych^f
e
function ina
S
^
,lnf0rmal
2S“.
-S
ssss .%
t
“in;,
iit?\\v.ycrMr,
r
.
l?h.
tS
ai *«"•
descriptors* tV.t* .m^lp^bUnd / d*
1 .f'M
selectively between target
and controls^ or^s
tC*^^
tSSSHaT^S?
w^Vh theming Vf u£
sSont
mati °n
r an s ^e^
d™® ^9 i ven^xpe zd. ment a 1 *procedure Vr
a
elsewhere
US
especiallv
the
? Uthor ^
exsewnere,
especially for precognition procedures
(Morris,
fny
Pj* ^ ® that
we
are comparing two descriptions
as we
dr,
sysSL^-Vor \lVt\
lrS£%'h
W\b
e dealing w^th tip
se^s
o°f
and
for-
he
the
,tar^et^
the three systems described above,
hh?
f°f the organism the three analogous systems
Within
ESP leriouslv
ifc
Tf W« ? i
a
flnal
. correspondence,
if we take
.
°®“ ou sly.
If we take PK seriously,
any physical event
activities
S
of
t
nThmaY
co
f
.nceivably be
influenced by volitional
ctivities
of other interested parties.
If we allow
sn<~h
se?iouslv
t°hp P
H
yC
' iC
functioning,
then the
idea
of taking
seriously
the
designating
of
one
subject
and
one
farap?
becomes
totally inappropriate and oversimplified.
CONCLUSION
Given
the
complexities
raised
above,
the
concept
of
the
Cse?
6t may be
so
9 ener al,
so
flexible,
so vagu e
P
as
to
be
analysis
lnd°tL^' iV ay
that this
is an "cSS.S
naxysis,
and that the designation of specific taroets
hv
an
investigator is arbitrary and misleading
Psi maTfunctiCC
in
such
a way that
the nature
of the
target Lally
iC
irrelevant and that what counts most
in any psi test in* or
S^CrCet SitUatl
°h
n
.
\
a
t? e Whole
ran^e
informational
thCiC
n
. PartlCi?ating or9anisms and those aspects of
environments capable of providing meaning.
227
Approved For Release 2000/08/15
: CIA-RDP96-00792R000701 040007-9
Approved For Release 2000/08/15
: CIA-RDP96-00792R000701 040007-9
On
the
other
hand,
perhaps
the
target
was
consigned
prematurely to
its s secondary position,
a position maintained
by
the
dearth
of
attention
paid
to
it
in
anecdotal
descriptions
and experimental
writeups.
Perhaps
if we
returned to focussing attention on the target more pattern
would emerge.-
-We may even come to develop evidence for
more
than one new communication
system,
each specific to targets
having
certain
characteristics.
Psi
may
not
be
as
independent of space, time, complexity or other constraints
as may presently seem to be the case.
One way or the other,
it is important for us to clarify the concept of the tarqet
and make better use of
it
in our research.
228
Approved For Release 2000/08/15
: CIA-RDP96-00792R000701 040007-9
Approved For Release 2000/08/15
: CIA-RDP96-00792R000701 040007-9
REFERENCES
Braud,
W.
(1981)
Lability
and
inertia
in
psychic
functioning.
In
B.
Shapin
and
L.
Coly
(Eds.)
Concents
and
T||ori|s
of Parapsychology jl980),
ParapsychologFTS^tl^T
Journal
of
Foster,
A.
(1 94 0).
Is
ESP
diametric’
Parapsychology ,
4,
325-328.
Morris
R.L.
(1980).
Psi
functioning
within
a
simple
communication
model.
In
B.
Shapin
and
L.
Coly
(Eds
)
fgStlon=°N\^orl7
FapSyCh ° :LOqy
'
^psychology
gougnaf-of' pfrapsvchoyoat
6 5^
. “aVs”®
,h0rt
dlsta—'
findinas
J
*
^
rf sens °ry
Perception:
Research
findings.
In
S.
Krippner
(Ed.).
Advances
in
irenumf
C
New°York^ ------- ^
E jjt£ a s en s o FfTe r ce~pt i o~nT
Rhine,
J.B.
and Pratt,
J.G.
(1962)
Parapsychology:
Frontier
TTTinoi s
Charles
C~£>La:
Sp
Y
r i affrllg
Roll,
W.G.
(1 976).
The
Poltergeist.
Scareernw
Pr-ooc
Metuchen,
N.
Jersey.
ss
*
Stanford,
R.G.
(1978).
Toward
reinterpreting
psi
events
Jour^al^of the American Society for Psychical Research .
72 1
Thalbourne,
M.
(1 982).
A
Glossary
of
Terms
Used
in
Parapsychology .
Heinemann:
London.
—
—