‘ “ Approved For Release 2003/09/16 : CIA-RDP96-00788R002000260002-1 THE JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH ee) * VOLUME 74 APRIL « 1980 NUMBER 2 A Computer-Based Laboratory Facility for the Psychophysiological Study of Psi! JAMES E. LENZ, EDWARD F. KELLY, AND JoHN L. ARTLEY ABSTRACT: This paper provides the basic reference to technical resources for psychophysiological research developed by the Experiential Learning Laboratory, Department of Electrical Engineering, Duke University. Hardware and software facilities are described which permit rapid construction of efficient computer-driven protocols for a wide range of experiments, entirely in FORTRAN. All data files are written directly to digital storage in a self-describing standard format, and are thus accessible to subsequent processing by a large collection of generalized data-- management, data-reduction, and statistical analysis programs. Special precautions have been taken to insure the integrity of physiblogical data, including development of computer-assisted daily-calibration and system-measurement procedures. The facilities described supply the necessary technical foundation for a systematic, wide-ranging, and long-term program of experimental research on physiological correlates of paranormal processes. INTRODUCTION Although it has not yet been clearly established that psi events bear orderly relations to physiological events, a number of theoreti- cal and empirical considerations converge to suggest that they should, and that the relevant physiological events may in useful degree be measurable (Kelly, 1977, 1979). . The discovery of consistent relationships of this sort could in principle lead to many useful consequences, among them improved | ' Aspects of this work have been supported by grants from the American Society for Psychical Research, the John E. Fetzer Foundation, Foundation for Research on ® the Nature of Man, the James McDonnell Foundation, the National Institute of i Mental Health (small grant MH 26537-01), and the Psychical Research Foundation. We also express our gratitude to the Parapsychology Foundation and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, whose encouragement and financial support made it possible to carry out this work. Approved For Release 2003/09/16 : CIA-RDP96-00788R002000260002-1 hod 2
t Approved For Release 2003/09/16 : CIA-RDP96-00788R002000260002+1 150 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research prediction and control, resolution of experimental ambiguities con- cerning time and source of psi effects, and even fundamental new insights into the mechanisms underlying psi. To explore these possibilities, we are currently developing a program of systematic research on the physiological correlates of psi processes in human beings. The central strategy of this program is to study fluctuations in psi task performance in relation to fluctu- ations of bodily state, as reflected in various kinds of electrical and mechanical signals measurable at the body surface. Although its strategy is conceptually straightforward, this kind of research is technically demanding. This is particularly true of re- search involving the electroencephalogram (EEG), the physiolog- ical signal which interests us the most because of its demonstrably intimate relationship to many information-processing activities of the brain. Consequently, we have devoted a large proportion of our initial effort to careful construction of a suitable base of technical resources for psychophysiological research. This report summarizes these developments, and is intended to provide the basic technical references for subsequent experimental reports. We have attempted to organize our presentation in such a way as to make it accessible to the general reader, while main- taining adequate completeness of technical detail. Thus, both the report as a whole and its major sections begin with general intro- ductions to the material in them, more detailed information being deferred to subsequent sections, footnotes, and parenthetical re- marks; the bulk of the very detailed material has been set aside in appendices for those who have interest in such details.? I. OVERALL STRUCTURE AND OPERATION OF THE RESEARCH FACILITY The facility is located within the Electrical Engineering Depart- ment of Duke University. A general layout of its organization is shown in Figure 1, the three main parts corresponding to physically separate regions of the facility. The computer, located on the first floor of the new engineering annex building, is owned by the EE Department. The instrumenta- tion and controlled environment rooms are in the sub-basement of the old engineering building, some hundred feet, three walls, and two floors distant. The instrumentation room contains the equip- ment noted in Figure 1; the experimenter is normally located in this room while monitoring an experimental session in progress. Lo- 2 Copies of these appendices are available upon request to the authors.—Ed. Approved For Release 2003/09/16 : CIA-RDP96-00788R002000260002-1
Ee  ———— Approved For Release 2003/09/16 : CIA-RDP96-00788R002000260002-1 A Computer-Based Laboratory 151 HARDWARE ORGANIZATION . Laboratory Area Computer Room Instrumentation Room | Controfled Environment Room 11 1 Line Tektronix Hard im Printer Terminal Copy i! - ' f i ' 1 Response = | * Ul Digutal Dato {_Encodec _} \ Disk ORI-C i Multiplexer 7 \ (2M) Digital RNG 1 POP=U/45. Interface ! \ i Disk d ' (12M) Computer a Somat \ t t 1 Stimulus / Response Tbisk | (with Porallel) | Microcomputer, 2 OAC Feedback Device (64K) | 28K Core, | Ausitory |__U! Based on Intel 6085 { Chonne [————] Floating - Point Pot It kK ROM Digital Processor! {Serial) I (kK RAM (8 Cranaels | Tape Console (12-15M) Port it L (Serial) pew Analog Tape Storage Potygraph Loboralory Peripheral System ot eer Gross 7B Telemetry (4 Channels + Panasonic, Stereo RS~736US Nae i" Digital LED Relays| 170. |OAC|ADC | Programmable pis! (2) |6/9631(21 | (8) Clock } To Audio Receiver Fig. 1. General layout of the research facility. (Heavy arrows denote multichannel data paths; dashed vertical lines delimit physically separate regions of the facility.) \ \ i) | i 1 i} i) (6AC Coupl rat (4 Channels} i i) \ ; 1 i * (Clock Pulses! cated adjacent to this area is the controlled environment room where the subject is located during a session. This room is elec- tromagnetically shielded, acoustically quiet (though not sound- proof), and of pleasant decor lighted by a bank of adjustable, DC powered colored lights. A typical experimental session runs as follows: The subject, after being appropriately outfitted with electrodes for physiological re- cording, is brought to the controlled environment room. Here the electrodes are connected to the polygraph via a plugboard, and various facilities are arranged for presenting stimuli and monitoring responses. In the adjacent instrumentation room, the experimenter first makes preliminary adjustments of relevant equipment, and then, using the downstairs console, initiates a dialogue with the remote computer. This dialogue may include, for example, tests of the hardware random number generator (RNG), adjustment of audio feedback tones, and tests of the response-monitoring devices. It invariably includes a standard daily calibration procedure for the physiological measurement system (see below, Section IJI.D.1.). The experimenter then invokes the relevant ‘‘real-time’’ experi- mental control program and supplies it with information about the + experimental session to be run; for example, session and subject 1 identifications, and experimental parameters such as number of trials, number of physiological channels to be sampled, length of sample periods, etc. With the instrumentation correctly adjusted and the control pro- gram suitably initialized, the experiment proper Can begin Approved For Release 2003/09/16 : CIA-RDP96-00788R002000260002-1
. Approved For Release 2003/09/16 : CIA-RDP96-00788R002000260002-1 152 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research whenever the subject feels ready.* From this point. forward, the experimenter’s function is principally to monitor the physiological instruments and to intervene in the event any abnormal conditions should develop. The experiment is otherwise entirely under the supervision of the remote computer program, which controls such processes as generation of targets, collection of responses, sam- pling of physiological channels, and writing of data records to computer storage as dictated by the experimental protocol. The analysis of the physiological data in particular is generally too complex to be carried out concurrently with data collection, and is instead normally carried out later in a separate stage by applying the data management, data reduction, and statistical analysis capabilities outlined below in Section IIIB. Il. HARDWARE COMPONENTS Here we give further details on the hardware organization, em- phasizing major items of equipment that can be purchased in vari- able configuration, plus specialized or novel components of the hardware system that are not available commercially. A. Computer The central computer, which we share with other members of the Electrical Engineering Department, is a Digital Equipment Cor- poration (DEC) PDP-11/45. It has 28K 16-bit words of core mem- ory, supplemented by an (FP-11B) floating-point processor.‘ Stor- age devices include two (RK05) removable cartridge disks each capable of handling up to 1.2 million words of data, an (RCI1) fixed-head disk with 64K words capacity (used mainly for spe- cialized utility functions), and a (Digidata Maxidek 1730) digital * The presence of large amounts of formidable-looking apparatus tends to create a heavy ‘‘technological” atmosphere which some subjects may find intimidating on first contact. Our experience so far, however, suggests that this is not a serious problem, We always spend a good deal of time with new subjects to help them to feel relaxed and comfortable with us and with the laboratory, and we generally work intensively with each selected subject over an extended period of time. Under these circumstances any initial difficulties seem to dissipate quite rapidly. 4 We wish to thank the Parapsychology Foundation for a special equipment grant which made possible the purchase of the last 12K of core; this was essential to implementation of the software capabilities described below. We also thank the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations for supporting purchase of the floating-point processor and digital tape drive, which jointly make it practical to apply these software capabilities to the large volume of data generated by psychophysiological experiments. Approved For Release 2003/09/16 : CIA-RDP96-00788R002000260002-1
i e Approved For Release 2003/09/16 : CIA-RDP96-00788R002000260002-1 ° A’ Computer-Based Laboratory 153 tape drive (1600 BPI, approximately 12-15 million words per 2400’ tape). The main controlling console is a (Tektronix 4013) graphics terminal, which has an associated copying facility (Tektronix 4610) for making permanent records of visual displays as desired. When large volumes of printed output are generated, as for example in . statistical analyses of physiological data, they are directed to a small line printer (Data Products LP 2310) which prints up to 80-character lines at speeds of up to 250 lines per minute. As shown in Figure 1, communication between the PDP-11 and the equipment in the instrumentation room downstairs takes place through several devices. First, the DR11-C is a general-purpose digital input-output device reserved solely for our use, which con- trols in parallel 16 lines of digital input and 16 lines of digital output. As described in more detail below (in subsections D, E) it is used primarily for transmitting upstairs to the PDP-11 sampled physiological data and other kinds of information generated during an experiment. However, it can also be used to send data in the other direction as well. For example, we can use this device to display in the laboratory physiological data being received upstairs by the PDP-11; this assures rapid detection of gross malfunction in the data acquisition system. Second, two sets of serial input-output ports are used. The ‘“‘con- sole’’ port can be connected with the DECwriter terminal in the laboratory, thus permitting the PDP-11 to be controlled remotely as described earlier. The ‘‘auxiliary’’ port enables the PDP_-11 to control the 8085 microprocessor; for example, it is used to load into the 8085, automatically, particular pre-programmed subroutines re- quired for a given experiment (see subsection E). Finally, a number of other facilities are available through a DEC-supplied hardware facility called the Laboratory Peripheral System (LPS-11).. Our LPS-11 contains the following: First, a (KW11-P) programmable clock, which is crystal-controlled to permit precise regulation of the timing of all experimental events such as the spacing of successive physiological samples, generation of targets, etc. The ‘‘ticks’’ of this clock are also delivered simulta- neously to the 8085 via a special dedicated line. Other facilities include an 8-channel analog-to-digital converter (no longer used— see subsection D); two channels of digital-to-analog conversion, used for returning various kinds of signals to the laboratory; two relays, which can be used to control stimulus devices in the neigh- borhood of the PDP-11 (for example, a stroboscope); another * 16-bit. parallel digital input/output unit (not used); and a simple numerical display of light-emitting diodes (LED), which can be used, for example, in debugging programs or to ‘display target numbers to ‘‘agents’”? in GESP experiments. Approved For Release 2003/09/16 : CIA-RDP96-00788R002000260002-1
| _ Approved For Release 2003/09/16 : CIA-RDP96-00788R002000260002-1 154 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research B. Polygraph The core of the physiological measurement system is a Grass (Model 7B) solid-state polygraph. It has eight channels of amplifi- cation: two DC preamplifiers (7P1B), four wide-band AC-coupled preamplifiers (7P5B), and two wide-band AC-coupled preamplifiers with integrators (7P3B). All channels use Model TDAE driver amplifiers. Auxiliary equipment includes the Grass (EB24) elec- trode plugboard and (7ESP24) electrode selector panel.* C. Analog Tape Recorders and Telemetry Units Many kinds of physiological experiments generate enormous volumes of data. Analog recorders are widely used for bulk storage of raw physiological data, and we initially planned to follow this practice, taking advantage of the 4-channel Hewlett-Packard in- strumentation recorder, which was already on hand. Although this approach proved fairly satisfactory, it became evident that a com- pletely digital system would be greatly superior. By recording data directly in digital (sampled) form, one eliminates a variety of smali but not negligible sources of experimental error. These include such things as irregularities of tape transport speed and tape orien- tation, additive environmental noise, and other imperfections of analog environments related to problems such as providing accu- rate timing signals and reliable mechanisms for encoding and de- coding responses (Bendat and Piersol, 1971, Chapter’ 7; Walter, 1972; see also Vos, 1977). However, analog recording methods still have occasional uses . in our work. The main use is to provide access to data collected in other laboratories, or under field conditions, using radio telemetry methods developed in our laboratory by Fritz Klein. These methods encode physiological signals as modulations of an FM carrier, using pocket-sized amplifier/transmitter units and audio tape recording. The basic techniques are described in detail elsewhere (Klein, 1976b) and some preliminary examples of their many possible applications in parapsychological research are con- tained in Palmer (1979) and Solfvin, Roll, and Kelly (1977).° 5 We wish to express our gratitude to W. G. Roll and the Psychical Research Foundation for making this essential equipment available to us. It replaces the Grass Model 79B which we used initially. 6 Our current prototype telemetry units, which were constructed using funds supplied by the John E. Fetzer Foundation, allow us to collect either two channels of EEG, or EKG and GSR. We are presently seeking funds to construct an expanded and improved system, particularly for use in poltergeist investigations. Approved For Release 2003/09/16 : CIA-RDP96-00788R002000260002-1