Approved For Release 2000/08/08 ; |A-RPP96-00789R002200650001-6 PSYCHOLOGICAL SC a nn Ly aeaenenEEREs aA empbenaemennmeiniammmamanenerenstenantstammteiotnsddhiliatiiia test dinniip ei ieiainiieans asa penaaAnSgTeEgETS EER ERED ATSRAS PSE REn ean Enhancing Human Performance psychology soon became a bedfellow of the unconven- tional training techniques in the army, FORMATION OF THE NRC COMMITTEE In conversations between Edgar M. Johnson, techni- cal director of AR], and David A. Goslin, then executive director of the Commission on Behavioral and Social Sci- ences and Education (CBASSE) of the NRC, and in a formal fetter request. it was indicated that the AR] lead- ership wanted help, not only to reduce broad pressures on it that had recently intensified, but also with an im- portant national problem of interest to private industry and the public as well as the military, CBASSE members who evaluated this request included psychologists Wil- liam K. Estes, tra J. Hirsh, Lauren Resnick, and Stanley Schachter, In response to the request, CBASSE moved lo sel up 4 committee especially for the purpose, with suggestions for particular kinds of expertise also from other advisers including psychologists Robert Boruch, Wendeil R. Garner, Bert F. Green, and Gardner Lindzey. The first author of this article was enlisted as committee chair and, together with Goslin, he developed the final recommendations for membership that were endorsed by the commission.' Daniel Druckman was appointed as the committee's study director. The Committee on Techniques for the Enhancement of Human Performance (henceforth. the committeei met | first in late July 1985. ARI's Johnson along with George Lawrence, its liaison to (he committee, arranged for sev- eral speakers at the first meeting, who informed and | sometimes perplexed the members. A few speakers de- scribed single techniques, others waxed enthusiastic about the full range of them. and one, # retired general, spoke eloquently of his own extensive psychokinetic powers. General Maxwell R. Thurman was the motivational speaker at dinner the first evening. His graphs demon- strated that in terms of recruits’ tesl scores, the army was doing increasingly better, and also better compared to the other services. His review of the traditional and growing demands placed on soldiers, however, made clear thal | these demands continued to outstrip abilities by a large murein. THE COMMITTEE’S APPROACH The committee could easily imagine the great difficul- | ties faced in converting recruits, most of them with min- 1. The cammittee consisted of John A, Swets, chair, Robert A, Biork, Thomas 0. Cook, Gerald C. Davison, Lloyd G. Humphreys. Ray Hyman, Donel M. Landers, Sandra A Mobley, Lyman W. Porter, Michael 1. Posner, Walter Schneider, Jerome £. Singer, Sally Springer. and Richard F. Thampson. 86 . . 1 . ee ga a CN | mujer empirical studies in parapyychalogy involving randant event ger | TE RC A I, i af Staff for fneelligence. Director af Army Research and Technology. ; imal education as well as short terms of duty, into sol] * 1 diers who possess the personal and social skills needed in | | battle as well as the technical skills needed to operate and | maintain complex equipment. [t could understand urges to look beyond slow. narrow, and insufficiently targeted mainstream research on human performance to enhance. | ments that could come from elsewhere. And it was aware | that those in the army responsible for training and tech i nique evaluation would face difficulties in responding to | strong enhancement claims (both by army officers and outside vendors) for diverse and far-ranging techniques. \ The committee agreed that the general problem deserved objective and thorough examination and was willing to ' initiate such a study. Subcommittees were formed on variaus facets of the | problem, including evaluation issues, sleep learning, ac- celerated learning, guided imagery, biofeedback, split- | brain effects, stress management, cohesion, influence, and parapsycholagy. The committee met as a whole six) times in 2 years, in whole or part made ten site visits, invited twenty or so briefings, and cammissioned ten background review papers.? It met twice with a Re-| souree Advisory Group of army officers formed for the purpose.” nee ‘ Con oi oo ofa a ARMY BACKGROUND ¢ The army's interest in parapsychology is reported to | f, be longstanding. including, for example, sponsorship of lj ESP research by J.B. Rhine in the early (950s. Remote! u viewing experiments were conducted for the army by the : 4 Stanford Research Institute in the (970s. A military con: | cern has been that the Soviets have been active in the |” development of psychic abilities, including the ability Wo affect the behavior of others through mental telepathy. A | proposal developed in the army for the First Earth Bal | talian envisioned warrior monks with a range of parapsy- | wr AR < S a 1, Ten commissioned pupers, available trom the National Academy Press, are these: Eric Eich, Learning during sleep, Rabert E. Slavin, Principles of effective instruction; Deborah L. Feltz. Daniel M Lunders. and Betsy J, Becker. A revised meta-caalysis of the mental | practice iteralure on motor skill learning, Seymour Levine, Stress and | performance: Ravmand W. Novaco, Stress reduction and the milisary: [ Dean G. Pruitt. Jennifer Crocker, and Deborah. Hanes, Matching and other influence strategies: Boaz Tamir and Gideon Kunda, Culture and | military performance: James E. Alcock, A camprehensive review at) jo y erators and remote viewing, Monica J. Harris and Robert Rasenthe. Interpersonal expectancy effects and human performance reseetcr, Dale Griffin. Intuitive sud&iment and the evaluation of evidence. : 3. The Resource Advisory Group consisted of general officers whe ! held the positions of Deputy Chief of Staff far Personnel. Deputy Chief | + Commander of the Soldier Support Center, and Commander, Medi | | Research and Development Command and as well yhe Assstant Sats: ' retary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affarrs. VOL. 1, NO. 2, MARCH Ve Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R002200650001-6 yo
ete he \c- it. 2O. biX en ce he to of te- he an- he to al- my it, veal and wy! | and | and af en hal, cA, vho hief wy. ical .__Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R002200650001-6 PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE | 4) chological abilities wllowing them, for example, to leave ‘heir bodies and to walk through walls. (See, e.g.. || Squires, [988.} These ideas and enhancement techniques ofthe sort mentioned above were advanced by an infor- '' mal group of some 300 army officery known as the Delta | Force (not to be Confused with the antiterrorist ust hav ” ing the same name). Several other lask forces in the army were organized in the (970s ta ¢xamine and promote the | techniques, An influential memo pulling much of this together for ihe army was written in 1982 by General Thurman, then Lieutenant general and deputy chief of staff for person- ad. (Thurman went on lo became a four-star general und wee chief of stall, and was an architect of ihe army's very sucessful recruiting campaign with the slogaa of ‘Be all ‘hal you can be,'"’) He subsequently led she army's irain- ing eHort as cammunder of the Training and Doctrine | Command. His memo identified ‘‘accelersied icarning, | aferential focus, previsuatization. psychokinetics and rad remote viewing, biophysical stress preven: | geet erent | en tian, etc.” as techniques that ‘should be considered.“It -wis based in part on a half-dozen commercially avuiisble [lechniques that may be characterized a3 follows, Suggestive accelorative learning and teaching tech- vigques (SALTT) combine physical relaxation. mental! ancentration, guided imagery. suggestion, and baroque {music to emprove classroom performance, The Jawraal of “the Suctety for Accelerative Learaing and Teaching pud- fyhes evaluations of applications of SALTT to language waning, typing instruction, high-school science courses. ind so forth. Concentrix designates a specific procedure for training ; sual concentration on a target, broadly defined, and {i ra, and sengory and visualization skills. [t is intended | or application not only to marksmanship but to ihe op- tntion of complex equipment. movement over jong dis- j ances with the objectives of reducing fatigue, and intel- i gence gathering. ’) Hemi-Syact® short for hemispheric synchronization. waists of presenting tones of slightly different Fre: ~ ~— measured brain response follaws changes in the beat fre- quency and changing sound patterns are (huught to eee je for language learning, stress reduction, reading skilfs, seblem solving, creativily, and sleep control. | Svessemanagement techniques are designed (0 allevi- deanxiely and tension und are implemented by self-help kaks and groups and by clinics. They often emphasize maximizing hand-eye coordination. bulunce, body con. | quency to each car to produce a Leating sound. An EEG- | |; shenge statey of awareness. Recommended applications | John A. Swets and Robert A. Bjork fines, nutrition, and life styles, as well as urategies - - ch as progressive rolaxation and image rehearsal. Pro- | mers claim an inteructive effect aad put forth a partic: | | var package of techniques. VOL. 1, NO. 2, MARCH 1990 Neuroringuistic programming (NUP) |s intended pri- marily to be a means of exerting influence over others. The skilled practitioner is supposed to be able to deter- mine What representational gyatem (e.g., visual, audi. tory. or kinesthetic) another person is using at the mo- ment—by observing his or her specch, eye movements. and posture-—and then te frame communications to that person in terms of the particular representational system in use. A national association tg reported to have a mem: bership of abut $00 persons. fn 1983, an ad Ave subgroup of the Army Science Board. formed in response to General Thurman's memo, issued a report supportive of further consideration of theye techniques, The group had been exposed to them in an “experiential workshop format’’ during a four-day ' meeting at the Monroe Institute of Applied Sciences, developer of Hemi-Syne. It recommended that formal mechanisms be established to undertake a major effort on | “human technologies,’ that ‘technologies should be « sorted inte those which require a scientific base and need verifiable, repeatable data for evaluation versus those which are more analytic representing principles of good practice and are evaluated by consensus, acceptance and overall effectiveness, and. further, that research efforts be managed jointly by the Army Research Institute and the Medical R&D Command. In 1984. ARI, which reported then to General Thur. man, hired a program manager, commissioned review pa- pecs an five techniques, and requested of the National Reséurch Council that a committee examine the area, In 1985, ARI initiated research or. several of the techniques and reviewed army research in progress elsewhere. THE COMMITTEE'S SPECIFIC FINDINGS Learning During Sleep The committee recommended that the army give sleep learning a ‘second look.’ Considering only the sleep- learning literature. there seemed little basis for any kind of positive recommendation, This conclusion was rein- forced in a detailed briefing by LaVerne Johnson of the Naval Health Research Center. When al) possible criteria are appiied to verify that the learner is (ruly asleep, there uppears to be no evidence of conscious recognition or ' | | | | | recal! of materials presented during sleep (for a thorougs | review, yee Aacons, '976). In fact, since the mid-1970s. research activity on sleep learning has nearly stopped, at least in this country, ; The committee, however, was influenced by recent developments (n basic research on ‘implicit memory,” *stimulus-driven processing,’ ‘learning without aware- ness," and related topics (for reviews, yee Richardson- Klavebn: & Bjork, 1988, Schacter, 1987; Shimamura, 1984; and the commissioned paper by Eich, footnote 2). 87 Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R002200650001-6
Enhancing Human Performance a ye” riences, the committee found no scientific warrant for the | it thought would be useful mechanisms for advice to dif- a 4K existence of parapsychological phenomena, (No scien- | ferent parts of the army us well as bidding procedures it | tific justification” was the phrase agreed on with NRC | felt would facilitate informed choices of programs and | editors for the committee's report, but warrant’ cap- | vendors. tures better the intended sense.) Though the commitice The committee recommended that the army continue | | therefore saw no reason for direct army involvement, it | !o examine vigorously enhancement techniques that ap- ( felt that monitoring by the army of the main, current. | pear promising. It added the advice that the examination | experimental work would be prudent and suitable. If that should be systematic and should include techniques {of monitoring led to the proposal of specific studies, the | drawn from mainstream rescarch as well as packages pro- Ge or 4 recommendations were that army and outside scientists moted by vendors. A main concern of the committee was ace arrive at an agreed-upon research protocol, thal the re- | to link more closely the army's great interest in enhanc- other main pared for the Army Research Institute by John Palmer and from a review of the same studies that it commis- sioned Alcock to make. The committee also reviewed the body of experimental research, namely. on Ganzfeld experiments, in which a homogeneous visual field is used to alter states of mind in the interest of receiving psi signals. A paper on intuitive judgment and the evaluation of evidence was prepared for the commit- tee by Griffin (see footnote 2). With particular attention to the three sets of experi- mental studies, but including its other reviews and expe- search be conducted by proponents and skeptics, and that attention be given to the manipulability and practical application of any effects found to exist GENERAL CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS The committee observed a pervasive army tendency to accept and implement enhancement techniques on the ' basis of personal or clinical experience and marketplace popularity instead of on the basis of research evidence that could establish the existence and usefulness of an enhancement effect. In expressing its concern ubout this practice, the committee issued a list of questions about presumed enhancement techniques that had been pre- pared by scientists at the Walter Reed Army [nstitute for Research; What changes will the technique produce? What evidence supports the claims for the technique? What theories stand behind it? Who will be able to use it? What are its implications for army operations? How does it fit with army philosophy? What are the cost-benefit factors? (Hegge. Tyner. & Genser, 1983), Because strong claims of support from basic research have been made for some of the techniques the commit- tee examined, the committee reviewed in its report what it takes to justify a scientific claim. Specifically, it high- lighted the need to conduct basic research so that infer: ences could be drawn in accordance with scientific slan- dards--inferences about novel concepts, causation, alternative explanations of causal relations, and the gen- eralizability of causal relations. Standards for evaluating field tests of enhancement programs were also reviewed, including such factors as immediate effects, side effects, assigning merit and meeting needs. likelihood of transfer, | and contrast with alternatives. The committee acknowledged the differences between rational decision making in science and in practical con texts. for example. differences in the benefits of correct | decisions and the costs of incorrect decisions and in what | is viewed as a timely decision. It recammended that the army acknowledge such differences explicitly in connec tion with decisions about particular techniques. I set forth an analysis of the unreliability of testimonies as evidence for enhancement effects. And it stipulated whal ing human performance and its substantial resources for | conducting tests to evaluate techniques. The committee | remarked on the potential for transfer to (he civilian sec: tor, COMMITTEE PUBLICATIONS The committee's final report was published as a book | Enhancing human performance: Issues, theories, and techniques, edited by Druckman and Swets. (A second printing was made a year later.) With preliminary copies | available, a briefing was given army officials and a press conference wus held in December 1987, with Swets, | Bjork. Hyman, Singer, and Druckman representing the | committec. The press conference was attended by some , fifty reporters who heard a | 45-minute prepared statement | and then raised questions for an hour or so, Primary ar: ‘ ticles appeared in the New York Times (Leary, (987), Washington Post (Squires, 1987a, 1987b), Washington | 1987), and articles based on them appeared in many ather , local and regional newspapers. Other news articles wert | published in Science (Holden, 1987). Science News | (Greenberg, 1988), Science and Government Report | (Greenberg. 1987), APA Monitor (Hostetler, 1988), Pave | Education (Wheeler. 1987), Beijing's Science and Tech: nolugy Daily for June 29, (988. and the NRC's News | Report (Jarmal, 1988). Swets and Druckman co-authored | an op-ed article that was printed in 25 daily newspapers. | The press conference was videotaped by NBC, CNN. , and the United States Information Agency. CNN re-'' VOL. 1, NO. 2, MARCH 19% “iy the National Academy Press in early 1988, entitled |” Times (Price, 1987). and Las Angeles Times (Gillete. >” chology Today (Roberts, 1988), The Chronicle of Higher | ' rt [i iy \ 9 Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R002200650001-6