against eventual replicability. In the Maimonides se- ries, likewise, three successive replications (Lines C, D, and E in Table 1) yielded no significant result, yet they are part of a program yielding highly significant overall results. — If results of such potentially great interest and scientific importance as those of the Maimonides program had been reported on a more conventional topic, one might expect them to be widely and ac- curately described in reviews of the field to which they were relevant, and 10 be analyzed carefully as a basis for sound evaluation of whether replication and extension of the research were indicated, or of whether errors could be detected and understood. What has happened in this instance of anomalous research findings? Representation of the Maimonides Research in Books by Psychologists It is appropriate to begin with E. M. Hansel’s 1980 revision of his earlier critical book on parapsychology. As part of his attempt to bring the earlier book up to date, he included an entire chapter on experiments on telepathy in dreams. One page was devoted to a description of the basic method used in the Maimon- ides experiments; one paragraph summarized the im- pressive outcome of 10 of the experiments. The rest of the chapter was devoted mainly toa specific account of the experiment in which psychologist Robert Van de Castle was the subject (the outcome is summarized in Line G of my Table 1) and to the attempted rep- lication at the University of Wyoming (Belvedere & Foulkes, 1971), in which Van de Castle was again the subject. Another page was devoted to another of the Maimonides experiments that was also repeated at the University of Wyoming (Foulkes et al., 1972). Hansel did not mention the replication by Globus et al. (1968), whose authors felt that the results encour- aged further exploration. Hansel gave more weight to the two negative outcomes at Wyoming than to. the sunroof the Maimonides research, arguing that sensory. “TUES SUppusedly ‘permitted by the procedures at Mai- monides, not possible because of greater care taken by the Wyoming experimenters, were responsible for the difference in results. He did not provide, of course, the full account of procedures presented in the original Maimonides reports that might persuade many read- ers that Hansel’s interpretation is far from compelling. . Nor did he consider why some of the other experi- ments at Maimonides, not obviously distinguished in the care with which they were done from the two that were replicated (¢.g., those on Lines E, M, and O of Table 1) yielded a close-to-chance outcome such as Hansel might have expected sensory cuing to prevent. Hansel | exaggerated the opportunities for sensory cuing—that is, for the percipient to obtain by ordinary “sensory means some information about the target for Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003100140001-2 the night. He did this notably by misinterpreting an ambiguous statement in the Maimonides reperts, not mentioning that his interpretation was incompatible with other passages; his interpretation was in fact er- ronecous, as shown by Akers (1984, pp. 128-129). Furthermore, Hansel did not alert the reader to the great care exerted by the researchers to eliminate pos- sible sources of sensory cuing. Most important is the fact that Hansel did not provide any plausible ac- count—other than. fraud—of how the opportunities ‘for Sensory cuing that ‘he ‘claimed existed would be likely {0 lead to the striking findings of the research. For example, he seemed to consider important the fact that at: Maimonides the agent could leave his or her room during the night to go to the bathroom, whereas in Wyoming the agent had a room with its own bathroom, and the outer door to the room was sealed with tape to prevent the agent from emerging. Hansel did not attempt to say how the agent’s visit to the bathroom could have altered the details of the percipient’s dreams each night in a manner distinc- lively appropriate to that night's target. The only plausible route of influence on the dream record seems to be deliberate fraud involving the researchers and their subjects. The great number and variety of personnel in these studies—experimenters, agents, percipients, and judges—makes fraud especially un- likely as an explanation of the positive findings; but Hanse] did not mention this important fact. lt_appears to me that all of Hansel’s criticisms ; of the Maimonides experiments are relevant only on thé hypothesis of fraud (except for the mistaken crit- icism I have mentioned above). He said that uninten- tional communication was more likely but provided no evidence either that it occurred or that such com- munication—in any form in which it might have oc- curred—could have produced such consistent results as emerged from the Maimonides experiments. ] infer that Hansel. was merely avoiding making explicit his unsupported accusations of fraud. Fraud is an inter- pretation always important to keep in mind, and it is one that could not be entirely excluded even by pre- cautions going beyond those used in the Wyoming studies. But the fact that fraud was as always, theo- retically possible hardly justifies dismissal of a series of carefully conducted studies that offer important suggestions for opening up a new line of inquiry into a topic potentially of great significance. Especially re- grettable is Hansel's description of various supposed defects in the experiments as though they mark the experiments as being carelessly conducted by general scientific criteria, whereas in fact the supposed defects are relevant only if one assumes fraud. A reader who is introduced to the Maimonides research by Hansel’s chapter is likely to get a totally erroneous impression of the care taken by the experimenters to avoid various possible sources of error. The one thing they could November 1985 * American Psychologist Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003100140001-2 1225
Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789 not avoid was obtaining results that Hansel considered a priori impossible, hence evidence of fraud: but Hansel was not entirely frank about his reasoning. ——An incidental paint warth nating is that Hanset _did not himself apply, in his critical he san dards "of eviderice_he demanded of the researchers, His conclusions were based implicitly on the assump- tion that the difference of outcome between the Mai- monides and the Wyoming experiments was a genuine difference, not attributable to random variation. He did not even raise the question, as he surely would have if, in some parallel instance, the Maimonides researchers had claimed or implied statistical Signif- icance where it was questionable. In fact, the difference of outcome might well have arisen from random error, for the percipient's own judgments the difference is significant at the 5% level (2-tailed), but for the out- siders’ judgments it does not approach significance, Another 1980 book is The Psychology of Tran- scendence, by Andrew Neher, in which almost 100 Pages are devoted to “psychic experience.” Neher dif- fered from the other authors I refer to in describing the Maimonides work as a “series of studies of great interest” (p. 145), but this evaluation seems to be ne- gated by his devoting only three lines to it and four lines to unsuccessful replications. A third 1980 publication, The Psychology of the Psychic, by David Marks and Richard Kammann, provides less of a general review of recent parapsy- chology than Hansel's book or even Neher’s one long chapter. It is largely devoted to the techniques of mentalists (that is, conjurors specializing in psycho- logical rather than Physical effects) and can be useful to anyone encountering a mentalist who pretends to be “psychic.” Most readers are not likely to be aware that Parapsychological research receives only limited attention. The jacket blurbs give a very different view of the book, as do the authors in their introductory sentences: ESP is just around the next corer. When you get there, it is just around the next comer. Having now turned over one hundred of these comers, we decided to call it quits and eee our findings for public review, (Marks & Kammann, 1980, p. 4) Given this introduction to the nature of the book, readers might suppose it would at least mention any comer that many Parapsychologists have judged to be an impressive turning. But the Maimonides dream. experiments received no Mention at all.” ‘voliime, by psychologist James Alcock (1981), quite clearly purports to include a general re- view and evaluation of Parapsychological research, Alcock mentioned (p. 6) that Hansel had examined the Maimonides experiments, but the only account of them that Alcock offered (on p. 163) was incidental to a discussion of control groups. By implication he seemed to reject the Maimonides experiments because they incl no control groups. He wrote that “a Control group, for which no sender or no target was used, would a essential” (p. 163). Later he added, “One could, ajternatively, ‘send’ when the subject was not in the dream state, and compare ‘success’ in this case with success in dream state trials” (p. 163). The first tements sugeests a relevant use of con- s ~—— . . 7 . oa trol groups but errs in calling it essential; in_ other psychological research, Alcock would have doubtless readily recognized that within-subjéct conirol'can, Where feasible, be. much moreeficient-and pertinent than’a separat¢ control group. His second statersent~ of experiment that is probably im- possible (because in satisfactory form it seems to re- quire the subject to dream whether awake or asleep and not to know whether he or she was awake or asleep). This sqcond kind of experiment, moreover, has special per ence only to a comparison between dreaming and waking, not to the question of whether ESP is manifested in dreaming. Alcock, in/short, did not seem to recognize that the design of tht Maimonides experiments was based On controls exactly parallel to those used by innu- merable psychologists in other research with similar logical structure (and even implied, cunously enough, in his own second Suggestion). He encouraged readers to think that thd Maimonides Studies are beyond the Pale of acceptable experimental design, whereas in ' fact they are fihe examples of appropriate use of i within-subject control rather than between-subjects | control. —: The quality of thinking with which Alcock con- fronted the Mairnonides research appeared also in a Passage that did not refer to it by name. Referring to an article poenstted in The Humanist by Ethel Grod- zins Romm, he ote, Romm (1977) arguéd that a fundamental problem with both the dream telepathy research and the remote viewing tests is that the reports suffer from what she called “shoe-fitting” language: she cited 4 Study in which the sender was installed in a room draped in white fabric and had ice cubes poured down his back. A receiver who reported ‘‘white™ was im- mediately judged td have made a “hit” by an independent Panel. Yet, as she bserved, words such as “miserable”, “wet"’ or “icy” would have been better hits... . Again. the obvious need is for 4 control group. Why are they not used? (p. 163) What Romm des¢ribed as “shoe fitting’ (misinter- Preting events to fil one’s expectations) is an important kind of error that is repeatedly made in interpretation of everyday occurtences by people who believe they are psychic. But the dream telepathy research at Mai- monides was well protected against this kind of error by the painstaking| controls that Alcock seemed not to have noticed. S irely Romm must be referring to some other and vely sloppy dream research? a 1260 . Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R006400 140004n2sychologisi
Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003100140001-2 _Notatall. The details in this paragraph, and Expect?” and it repeatedly speaks of “cult phuds,” even moréin Romm's article, point unmistakably, meaning people with PhDs who are interested in though inaccurately, to the fifth night of the first pre- parapsychological problems. Alcock’s repetition of cognitive series at Maimonides. The actual details of Romm’s misstatements in a context lacking these target and response would alone deprive it of much clues may well be taken by many a reader as scholarly of its value as an example of shoe fitting. As reported writing based on correct information and rational by Krippner, Ullman, & Honorton (1971), the target thought. Paradoxically, both Alcock’s paragraph and was a morning experience that included being in a Romm's article are excelient examples of the shoe- room that was draped with white sheets. The subject's fitting error that both decry in others who are in fact first dream report had included the statement, “I was carefully avoiding it. . ee just standing in a room, surrounded by white. Every ~ The last of the five books that bring, or fail to imaginable thing in that room was white" (p. 201). bring, the Maimonides research to the attention of There is more similarity here than Romm and Alcock psychologists and their students is Anomalistic Psy- acknowledged in mentioning from this passage only chology: A Study of Extraordinary Phenomena of Be- the single word “white.” havior and Experience, a 1982 volume by Leonard More important, however, is the fact that the ex- Zusne and Warren H. Jones. This is in many ways periment they were referring to provided no oppor- an excellent book, and it is also the one of the five tunity for shoe fitting. The procedures followed in the that comes closest to including a general review of experiment were completely misrepresented ina way important recent research in parapsychology. Its brief that created the illusion that the possibility existed. account of the Maimonides dream experiments, how- There was no panel, in the sense of a group of people ever, misrepresented them in ways that should seri- gathered together and capable of influencing each ously reduce a reader's interest in considering them other. The judges, operating independently, separately further. judged every one of the 64 possible combinations of Zusne and Jones’s description of the basic pro- target and transcript yielded by the eight nights of the cedure made three serious errors. First, it implied that experiment, not just the eight correct pairings, and one of the experimenters had a chance 1o know the they had no clues to which those eight were. Their identity of the target. (“After the subject falls asleep, responses are hardly likely to have been immediate, an art reproduction is selected from a large collection as they required reading the entire night's transcript. randomly, placed in an envelope, and given to the Because each judge was working alone and was not agent” p. 260). In fact, precautions were taken to en- recording times, there would have been no record if sure that no one but the agent could know the identity a particular response had been immediate, and no_ of the target. Second, the authors stated that “three record of what particular element in the transcript judges. .- . rate their confidence that the dream con- led to an immediate response. tent matches the target picture” (p. 260), leading the I looked up in a 1977 issue of The Humanist the reader to suppose that the judges were informed of article by Romm that Alcock cited. The half page on the identity of the target at the time of rating. In fact, shoe-fitting language gave as examples this item from a judge was presented with a dream transcript and a “the Maimonides research and also the SRJ_semote-. pool of potential targets and was asked to rate the : war Ce a nemenel viewing experiments (Puthoff & Targ,.1976)-done at - degree of similarity between the transcript and each “SRI International. _[n both cases what was said was member of the pool, while being unaware of which “pure fiction, based on failure to note what was done member had been the target. Third, there was a sim- in the experiments and in particular that the experi- _ ilarly, though more obscurely, misleading description “menters were well aware of the danger of shoe-fitting of how ratings were obtained from the dreamer. language and that the design of their experiments in- This misinformation was followed by even more _  orporated procedures to ensure that it could not oc- serious misrepresentation of the research and, by im- | cur. Romm’s ignorance about the Maimonides re- plication, of the competence of the researchers. Zusne search and her apparent willingness to fabricate false- and Jones (1982) wrote that Ullman and Krippner hoods about it should be recognized by anyone who (1978) had found that dreamers were not influenced had read any of the Maimonides research publica- telepathically unless they knew in advance that an tions. Yet Alcock accepted and repeated the fictions attempt would be made to influence them. This led, as though they were true. His presentation inthe con- they wrote, to the subject's being “primed prior to “text of a“bodk apparently in the scientific tradition going to sleep” through the experimenter’s secms to me more dangerous than Romm’s original preparing the receiver through experiences that were related article, for anyone with a scientific orientation should to the content of the picture to be telepathically transmitted be able to recognize Romm’s article as propaganda. during the night. Thus, when the picture was Van Gogh's Its utle, for example, is “When You Give a Closet Corridor of the St. Paul Hospital, which depicts a lonely Occultist a PhD, What Kind of Research Can You figure in the hallways of a mental bospital, the receiver. (1) November 1985 « American Psychologist . 1227 Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003100140001-2
Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003100140001-2 heard Rosza’s Spellbound played on a phonograph; (2) heard the monitor laugh hysterically in the room; (3) was addressed as “Mr. Van Gogh” by the monitor, (4) was shown paintings done by mental patients; (5) was given a pill and a glass of water, and (6) was daubed with a piece of cotton dipped in acetone. The receiver was an English “sensitive,” but it is obvious that no psychic sensitivity was required to figure out the general content of the picture and to produce an appropriate report, whether any dreams were actually seen or not. (pp. 260-261) If researchers were to report positive results of the experiment described here by Zusne and Jones and were to claim that it provided some positive ev- idence of ESP, what would a reader conclude? Surely, that the researchers were completely incompetent, but probably not that they were dishonest. For dishonesty to take such a frank and transparent form is hardly credible. Incompetence of the researchers is not, however, a proper inference. The simple fact, which anyone can easily verify, is that the account Zusne and Jones gave of the experiment is grossly inaccurate. What Zusne and Jones have done is to describe (for one specific night of the experiment) some of the stimuli provided to the dreamer the next morning, after his dreams had been recorded and his night’s sleep was over. Zusne and Jones erroneously stated that these stimuli were provided before the night’s sleep, to prime the subject to have or falsely report having the desired kind of dream. The correct sequence of events was quite clearly stated in the brief reference Zusne and Jones cited (Ullman & Krippner, 1978), as well as in the original research report (Krippner, Honorton, & Ullman, 1972). ] can understand and sympathize with Zusne and Jones's error. The experiment they cited is one in which the nocturnal dreamer was seeking to dream in response to a set of stimuli to be created and pre- sented to him the next morning. As may be seen in Table |, results from such precognitive sessions (all done with a single subject) were especially strong. This apparent transcendence of time as well as space makes the precognitive findings seem at least doubly impos- sible to most of us. An easy misreading, therefore, on initially scanning the research report, would be to Suppose the stimuli to have been presented partly in advance (because some parts obviously involved a waking subject) and partly during sleep. This erroneous reading on which Zusne and Jones based their account could easily have been.cor- rected by a more careful rereading. In dealing with Other topics, they might have realized the improba- bility that researchers could have been so grossly in- competent.and could have checked the accuracy of their statements before publishing them. Zusne and Jones are not alone in this tendency to quick miusper- ception of parapsychological research through pre- conception and prejudice; we have already seen it in Alcock’s book. Alcock) (1983) wrote the review of Zusne and Jones's book for Contemporary Psychology, the book-review jou of the American Psycholog- ical Association, and he did not mention this egregious error, even though very slight. acquaintance with the Maimonides research should suffice to detect it. Discussion The experiments at the Maimonides Medical Center on the possibility of ESPiin dreams clearly merit care- ful attention from psychologists who, for whatever reason, are interested inj the question of ESP. To firm believers in the impossibility of ESP, they pose a chal- lenge to skill in detecting experimental flaws or to the understanding of other sources of error. To those who can conceive that ESP might be possible, they convey suggestions about some of the conditions influencing its appearance or absen and about techniques for investigating it. This attention is not likely to be given by psy- . chologists whose knowl comes from the books that purport to review Some of those books e sification of thé facts simply neglect them. I none of these books has in the Maimonides ex ge about the experiments y their fellow psychologists parapsychological research. ge in nearly incredible fal- ut the experiments; others lieve it is fair to say that rrectly identified any defect iments other than ones rel- evant only to the hypothesis of fraud or on inappro- priate statistical reasoning (easily remedied by new calculations from the pu that the Maimonides ex and execution. I have design flaw that prevents the experiments; and the Olated at one session, as the basis of the full info inal report. (Neither o mentioned in any of the here, an indication of correct information abo ments.) lished data). I do not mean iments are models of design ready called attention to a Sensitive analysis of some of control procedures were vi- ets (1984) pointed out on tion supplied in the orig- these genuine defects was five books I have reviewed eir authors’ general lack of 1 the Maimonides experi- Readers who doubt that the falsification is as ex- reduced by familiarity research (1981, 1984). In} similar misrepresentatio ‘ness of procedures of psychologists would not it need only consult the . Their doubt might also be th some of James Bradley's is 1984 article, he reported of fact on a topic, robust- istical. inference, on which thought to have nearly the strength of preconception that many are known to have about ESP. How much more likely, then, falsi- fication on so emotionally laden a topic as ESP is for many psychologists! In the earlier article, Bradley (1981) presented experinjental evidence (for college students, in this case, not psychologists) that confi- 1228 November 1985 » American Psychologist Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003100140001-2 ae