Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000490005-1 Managing the Target Pool Bandwidth V4h 23 March 1994 Managing the Target Pool Bandwidth: Noise Reduction for Anomalous Cognition Experiments by Edwin C. May, Ph.D S. James P. Spottiswoode (Consultant) and Christine L. James Science Applications International Corporation Cognitive Sciences Laboratory Menlo Park, CA Abstract Lantz, Luke, and May (1994) reported in the first of two studies that experienced receivers from the Cognitive Sciences Laboratory produced significant evidence for anomalous cognition (AC) of static targets, but showed little evidence for AC of dynamic targets. This result was surprising—it was directly opposite to the results that were derived from the ganzfeld database (Bem and Honorton, 1994). In Lantz, Luke, and May’s experiment, the topics of the dynamic targets were virtually unlimited, whereas the topics for the static targets were constrained in content, size of cognitive elements, and range of affect. In a second experiment, Lantz, Luke, and May redesigned the target pools to correct this unbal- ance and observed significant improvement of AC functioning. We incorporate these findings into a definition of target pool bandwidth and propose that the proper selection of bandwidth will lead to a reduction of incorrect information in free-response AC. . Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000490005-1
Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000490005-1 Managing the Target Pool Bandwidth V4h 23 March 1994 introduction Effect sizes from forced-choice experiments are much lower than those from free-response studies. For example, in precognition (Honorton and Ferrari, 1989) and real-time (Honorton, 1975) forced-choice experiments, the effect size (i.e., Z/,/n) is 0.02, while in the free-response ganzfeld (Bem and Honor- ton, 1994), the effect size is 0.159. Even if we consider the ganzfeld response as a “forced-choice” among four alternatives, the x effect size, which converts 1-in-n into an effective binary choice hitting rate (Rosenthal and Rubin, 1989 and Rosenthal, 1991), is 0.5123-+0.0004 for card guessing and 0.5854+0.0287 for the ganzfeld (t = 46.2, df ~ 2x 10° p ~ 0). The large t-score is probably due to the large number of forced-choice trials (i.c., 210°). Considering that the mean of the forced-choice ef- fect size is 2.50 smaller than that of the ganzfcld, however, there is clearly a meaningful difference. One potential source of noise in forced-choice experiments, particularly when trial-by-trial feedback is giv- en, is memory of the previous trial and knowledge of the complete set of possibilities. For example, suppose a receiver is asked to guess if a particular card from a normal deck of playing cards is red or black. Suppose further that there is some putative information coming either from the card or from the mind of a sender, and that the receiver is a “good” imager (i.c., can easily picture a brilliant image of a playing card in her/his mind). The receiver's task, then, can be reduced to simple signal detection. Yet, if anomalous cognition (4C)" is not a robust information transfer mechanism, and it appears that it is not, the “signal” is easily lost among the vibrant internal imagery from the memory of all alternative playing cards. The resulting effect sizes, therefore, are reduced. The ganzfeld itself was developed as a somatic-sensory noise reduction procedure (Honorton and Harper, 1974). Honorton argued that by placing a receiver in a sensory-reduced environment, her/his reactions to the environment would be sharply reduced, encouraging a commensurate reduction of noise. Based upon the results of our current work, we argue that a major contributor of noise in any free-response study is cognitive and arises, in part, because of the target pool design. One result from the ganzfeld expcriments suggests that dynamic targets produce stronger results than static targets (Bem and Honorton, 1994). Lantz, Luke, and May (1994) attempted to replicate this find- ing in two lengthy experiments in 1992 and 1993. The first of these explored, in a 2x2 design, the rela- tionship of sender vs no-sender and static vs dynamic target type on the quality of the AC. Since Lantz, Luke, and May reported no significant effects or interactions due to the sender condition, we will ignore that aspect of this first experiment. In the second experiment, they conducted all trials without a sender and changed the characteristics of the target pool. This paper describes the insights gained from these two studies which led both to the concept of target pool bandwidth, and to a potential way of reducing noise in free-response AC. Summary of the first Anomalous Cognition Experiment - 1992 We begin by summarizing the experiment and pertinent results from a study that was conducted in 1992, the details of which may be found in Lantz, Luke, and May (1994). In the experiment, a static vs dynam- ic target condition was included to replicate the findings from the ganzfeld. * The Cognitive Sciences Laboratory has adopted the term anomalous mental phenomena instead of the more widely known psi. Likewise, we use the terms anomalous cognition and anomalous perturbation for ESP and PK, respectively. We have done so because we believe that these terms are more naturally descriptive of the observables and are neutral in that they do not imply mechanisms. These new terms will be used throughout this paper. Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000490005-1
Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000490005-1 Managing the Target Pool Bandwidth V4h 23 March 1994 Target Pools - 1992 For the static targets, Lantz, Luke, and May used a subset of 50 of our traditional National Geographic magazine collection of photographs (May, Utts, Humphrey, Luke, Frivold, and Trask, 1990). These targets had the following characteristics: © Topic homogeneity. The photographs contained outdoor scenes of settlements (e.g., villages, towns, cities, etc.), water (e.g., coasts, rivers and streams, waterfalls, etc.), and topography (e.g., mountains, hills, desserts, etc.). ® Size homogeneity. Target elements are all roughly the same size. That is, there are no size surprises such as an ant in one photograph and the moon in another. © Affectivity homogeneity. As much as possible, the targets included materials which invoke neutral affec- This pool is perhaps better characterized by what it does not contain. There are no people, animals, transportation devices or situations in which one would find these items—and no emotionally arousing pictures. The dynamic targets, on the other hand, followed similar lines to those from the ganzfeld studies. Lantz, Luke, and May digitized and compressed video clips from a variety of popular movies or docu- meataries. With the exception of cartoons and sexually-oriented material, the clips could contain virtu- ally anything. Examples included an indoor motor bike race anda slow panoramic scan of the statues on Easter island. Almost all of the characteristics of the static target pool were violated. The only common characteristic was thematic homogeneity within any given dynamic clip; across targets there were no restrictions on content. Data Analysis and Results - 1992 For each response, a single analyst conducted a blind ranking of five targets—the intended one and four decoys—in the usual way. The expected mean-chance rank was three. Effect sized were computed by: (R. - R,) JN2=1 , 12 where N is the number of rank possibilities (ic., five in our case) and R, and R, are the expected and observed average ranks, respectively. The p-values were computed from Z = ES x\/n, where n is the number of trials. ES = Each receiver participated in 20 trials for each target type, regardless of sender condition. Table 1 shows the average rank, the effect size, and its associated p-value for the static target condition. We see that the combined data is significant and that two of our most experienced receivers, 9 and 372, produced independently significant results. Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003000490005-1