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But there are more mundane possibilities. Extraverts
might perform better than introverts simply because they
are more relaxed and comfortable in the social setting of
the
typical
psi experiment
(e.g.,
the “warm
social am-
biance” of the autoganzfeld studies). This interpretation is
strengthened by the observation that introverts outper-
formed extraverts in a study in which subjects had no con-
tact with an experimenter but worked alone at home with
materials they received in the mail (Schmidt & Schlitz,
1989). In order
to help decide among these interpreta-
tions, ganzfeld experimenters have begun to use the ex-
traversion scale of the NEO personality inventory (Costa
& McCrae, 1985), which assesses six different facets of the
extraversion-introversion factor.
The sender. In contrast to all this information about the
receiver in psi experiments, virtually nothing is known
about the characteristics of a good sender or about the ef-
fects of the sender’s relationship to the receiver. As we
have seen, the initial suggestion from the meta-analysis of
the original ganzfeld database that psi performance might
be enhanced when the sender and receiver are friends was
not replicated at a statistically significant level in the au-
toganzfeld studies.
A number of parapsychologists have entertained the
more radical hypothesis that the sender may not even be a
necessary element in the psi process. In the terminology of
parapsychology,
the sender-receiver procedure
tests
for
the existence of telepathy, anomalous communication be-
tween two individuals; but
if the
receiver
is somehow
picking up the information from the target itself, it would
be termed clairvoyance, and the presence of the sender
would be
irrelevant
(except
for
possible
psychological
reasons like expectation effects).
At the time of his death, Honorton was planning a se-
ries
of autoganzfeld
studies
that would
systematically
compare sender with no-sender conditions while keeping
both the receiver and the experimenter blind to the condi-
tion of the ongoing session. In preparation, he conducted a
meta-analytic review
of ganzfeld
studies that used no
sender. He found 12 studies with a median of 33.5 ses-
sions conducted by 7 investigators. The overall effect size
(n) was
.56, which corresponds to a four-alternative hit
rate of 29%. But this effect size does not reach statistical
significance
(Stouffer z
=
1.31, p = .095). So
far,
then,
there is no firm: evidence for psi in the ganzfeld in the ab-
sence
of
a
sender.
(There
are,
however,
non-ganzfeld
studies in the literature that do report significant evi-
dence for clairvoyance, including a classic card-guessing
experiment by Rhine (Rhine & Pratt, 1954).)
The Physics of Psi
The psychological
level of theorizing discussed above
does not, of course, address the conundrum that makes psi
phenomena anomalous in the first place: their presumed
incompatibility
with
our
current
conceptual
model
of
physical reality. Parapsychologists differ widely from one
another in their taste for theorizing at this level, but sev-
eral whose training lies in physics or engineering have
proposed physical (or biophysical) theories of psi phenom-
ena. (An extensive review of theoretical parapsychology is
provided by Stokes
(1987).) Only some
of these would
force a radical revision in our conception of physical real-
ity.
Those who
follow contemporary
debates
in modern
physics, however, will be aware that several phenomena
predicted by quantum theory and confirmed by experi-
ment are themselves incompatible with our current con-
ceptual model of physical reality. Of these, it is the 1982
empirical confirmation of Bell’s theorem that has created
the most excitement and controversy among philosophers
and the few physicists who are willing to speculate on
such matters (Cushing & McMullin, 1989; Herbert, 1987).
' In brief, Bell’s theorem states that any model of reality
that is compatible with quantum mechanics must be non-
local. This implies, among other things, that any model of
reality compatible with quantum mechanics must allow
for the possibility that information about an event at one
location can be instantaneously available at some other
arbitrarily distant location, unattenuated and without the
mediation of any kind of transmitting signal
(Herbert,
1987).
Several possible models of reality that incorporate non-
locality have been proposed by both
philosophers and
physicists. Some of these clearly rule out psi-like informa-
tion transfer; others permit it; and some actually require
it. Thus, at a grander level of theorizing, some parapsy-
chologists believe that one of the more radical models of
reality compatible with both quantum mechanics and psi
will eventually come to be accepted. If and when that oc-
curs, psi phenomena would cease to be anomalous.
But we have learned that all such talk provokes most of
our colleagues in psychology and in physics to roll their
eyes and gnash their teeth. So let’s just leave it at that.
More generally, we have learned that our colleagues’
tolerance for any kind of theorizing about psi is strongly
determined by the degree to which they have been con-
vinced by the data that psi has been demonstrated. We
have further learned that their diverse reactions to the
data themselves are strongly determined by their a priori
beliefs about and attitudes toward a number of quite gen-
eral
issues, some
scientific, some
not.
In
fact,
several
statisticians believe that the traditional hypothesis test-
ing methods used in the behavioral sciences should be dis-
carded in favor of Bayesian analyses, which take into ac-
count a person’s a priori beliefs about the phenomenon
under investigation (e.g., Bayarri & Berger, 1991; Daw-
son, 1991).
But in the final analysis, we suspect that both one’s
Bayesian a prioriB and one’s reactions to the data are ul-
timately determined by whether one was more severely
punished in childhood for Type I or Type II errors.
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