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OBJECTIVE
The objective of this report is to provide an annotated bibliography of the document set that
was generated by the Cognitive Sciences Program under contract to the government from
1972 to date.*
* The document constitutes partial fulfillment of the deliverable under Subtask 1 of the FY95 SETA Task
2545-230.
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INTRODUCTION
The Cognitive Sciences Program was initiated by SRI International in 1972 under contract
to the Federal government to determine whether anomalous mental phenomena (i.e., extra
sensory perception and psychokinesis) existed and the
degree to which such phenomena
might be applicable to problems of national interest.
Over the years, the terminology has evolved; however, in this document
we will use the
following definitions:*
• Anomalous Cognition (AC)— the acquisition, by mental means alone, of information that
is secured by distance, time, or shielding.
• Anomalous Perturbation (AP)— the
influence, by mental means
alone,
of physically
isolated and secured matter.
• Anomalous Mental Phenomena (AMP)— the combination of AC and AP
.
• Basic Research—Research that is primarily oriented to understanding the mechanisms of
AMP.
• Applied Research—Research that is primarily oriented to increasing the magnitude of the
effects.
For the first 13 years of the project at SRI International, there was
no research mandate.
Any research that was conducted was to examine foreign claims or was conducted on an ad
hoc basis. To illustrate the point, out of a total budget of $1 1 .3 M spanning 17 years, $5.0
M was identified for research and only $700 K was allocated during the first 13 -years. The
majority of the research funding ($4.3 M) was allocated under a single contract that began
in FY 1986 and lasted through 1989. The temporal distribution of the documents in
this
annotated bibliography reflect this temporal distribution of resources.
Rather than simply list the documents chronologically, they are presented in the context of
the overall view of applied and basic research.
In addition, the emphasis is on anomalous
cognition,
however,
anomalous
perturbation and
search
are
presented
in
their own
sections.
Infrastructure for Research
An outline for basic and applied research is shown in Figure
1. Regardless of the ultimate
use of anomalous cognition, success intimately depends on the skill of the receiver. This
applied research problem is indicated as Receiver Selection and T raining.
In other words,
how do we identify individuals who possess a native AC skill, and is it possible to increase
that skill by training?
' Please see the Glossary at the end of this document for a complete definition of terms that may be found
in the document set.
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Figure 1. Document Domain
It follows naturally from these questions to address what are the
ideal target systems for
laboratory investigations and for potential applications. Figure
1 also shows that
what are
the ideal protocols to
illicit the best possible functioning”
is an appropriate
topic under
applied research. Determining the level ofAC
functioning requires a sensitive analytical
technique.
Basic
research
as
illustrated
in
Figure
1,
demonstrates
our
use
of
an
engineering
communication metaphor. That is, like other human sensory systems, we posit that there is
a source of energy/information, a propagation mechanism, and a detector system (i.e. the
human). The minimum this allows is to assign all the current research problems into one of
these three categories. For example, much of the field focuses upon the psychology of the
receiver.
Under the engineering metaphor,
psychological
effects can be considered
as
affecting “detector efficiency.”
Recognizing these categories has allowed us
to design
experiments that more easily separate physical properties from psychological ones and has
allowed us to test their relative contribution.
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ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Applied Research
We begin with the documents that are a product of our applied research,
because they
represent the vast majority.
Please refer to Figure 1 for a graphical
representation of the
applied topics
Receiver
Selection
Research and applications need high-quality receivers.
The problem
is to identify them
within the general population or within specific special populations.
Three approaches
have been used:
(1)
Medical profiles
(2)
Psychological and/or personality profiles.
146.
Humphrey, B.
S., Saunders, D. R., Lantz, N. D. (1986). Screening and Selec
tion
of Personnel: The Personality Assessment System (PAS).
[Replacement Document]
This report describes the Personality system in detail and its ability as a predictor of
good performing receivers. The report also includes and application of
the Myers-
Brigs Type Indicator self report instrument.
203.
Lantz,
N.
D.,
Kieman,
R.
J.
(1986).
Neuropsychological
Assessment
of
Participants in Psychoenergetic Tasks.
Dr. Kiernan is a clinical
Neuropsychiatrist.
He used
clinical testing techniques to
examine primarily frontal lobe contribution to successful receivers.
In addition, Dr.
Kiernan provides a commentary on the PAS.
***
May,
E. C„
Luke, W.
L. W.,
and James,
C.
L.
(1994).
Phenomenological
Research
and
Analysis.
Final
Report.
Science
Applications
International
Corporation, Menlo Park, CA. 13-16.
This
is the final technical report for 1994.
The Q-sort
is an empirically derived
instrument to examine personalities that have
been used successfully for 30 years.
This provides a status report on the Q-sort’s ability to screen for receivers.
(3)
Correlations with other phenomena.
(4)
Behavioral profiles.
Conclusion
Identifying talented receivers remains problematical. Although the numbers are small, the
medical profiles of receivers are essentially normal without any discernible spread
among
them Some of the psychological/personality measures produce significant
results, but
it
appears that these correlations are likely to be artifacts of the collection methodology. The
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cognition ability appears to be static within a given receiver and, like other human activities,
there is considerable variability across receivers.
Target
Selection
Analogous to other sensory systems,
perhaps AC
is more
acute on some
targets than
others.
In an application setting, is it a good policy to accept all possible tasking,
or are
there certain tasks that should not be attempted? In the laboratory, proper target selection
may improve the level of AC functioning, and in applications it may improve the efficiency
of resource allocation.
243.
May, E. C. and Trask, V. V. (1989). Forced-Choice Viewing.
Final Report, Project
1291. SRI International, Menlo Park, CA.
Guessing binary target is one of the most difficult AC tasks. This report describes a
cross-country,
trial
experiment
that
was
monitored
by
two
government
representatives. A 76% hitting rate was achieved.
***
May, E. C., Spottiswoode,
S.
J.
S., and James, C. L. (1994). Shannon Entropy as
an Intrinsic Target Property: Toward a Reductionist Model.
In May, E.
C.,
Luke,
W. L. W., and
James,
C.
L.
(1994).
Phenomenological Research and Analysis.
Final Report. Science Applications International Corporation, Menlo Park, CA.
A reviewed and edited version of this paper has been accepted for publication in the
Journal ofParapsychology .
It is suggested that the gradient of
Shannon s entropy
may be an intrinsic target property and that the quality of AC may proportional to it.
***
May, E. C., Spottiswoode, S.
J. P. and James, C. L. (1994). Managing the Target-
pool Bandwidth:
Possible Noise Reduction for Anomalous Cognition Experiments.
The Journal of Parapsychology, Vol. 58, 303-313.
This published paper describes what was learned about target selection from the
experiments conducted in 1992 and 1993. That is, a
compromise between forced-
choice guessing, where the receiver knows all possibilities, and open-ended material,
where the targets are completely unrestricted on content, can reduce response noise.
Conclusions
It has been known for some time that the
results from targets that are symbols, such as
simple geometric figures or alphabet letters, are an order of magnitude smaller than they are
when the targets are photographs or video
clips which
are
relatively
unrestricted with
regard to content. We have found, however, that the “noise” (i.e.,
incorrect elements in
responses) increases as the number of potential differentiable cognitive elements increase in
the target pool.
Resent results suggest that the quality ofAC is statistically proportional to the gradient of
Shannon’s entropy for photographs or video targets. We hypothesize that this result would
extend
to
gradients
of thermodynamic
entropy
for
physical
targets
because
of
the
relationship between Shannon and thermodynamic entropy and because of a number of
results
in the application data
set.
That
is,
accelerators,
directed energy systems and
explosions appear to be easily-sensed.
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Protocols
What is the optimum methodology to collect AC data? That is, what is the “set and setting
for sessions?” How long and how often should sessions be, and what is the best way to
indicate the target?
What psychological state
is best for the receiver?
How should we
guard against the inadvertent leakage of non-AC information
into responses or
protect
against fraud? In the laboratory, we require strict adherence to the standards of behavioral
science such a double blinds throughout.
Yet with applications in which
it is
critical to
obtain an answer, what is the degree to which “front loading” helps and how should this
non-AC information be tracked in the
output.
Analysis of data and controls
are also
protocol issues, but we consider them as a separate item under the analysis section, below.
84.
May,
E. C. and Hecker, M.
H.
L.
(1982).
Audiolinguistic Correlations with
the
Quality
of
Remote
Viewing
Sessions.
Final
Report,
Project
3279-5,
SRI
International, Menlo Park, CA.
To date, there appears
to be no a priori indicator of remote viewing quality.
Dr.
Hecker is a specialist in audio analysis, and he applied his techniques to a series of
trials with one receiver.
Linguistic style of this receiver predicted performance to a
statistically significant degree.
230.
Lantz, N. D. (1989). The Effects
of Hypnosis on Remote Viewing Quality. Final
Report, Project 1291. SRI International, Menlo Park, CA.
We used various methodological approaches to hypnosis
to improve the quality of
remote viewing.
Dr. Lantz, a clinical psychologist, gives probable explanations for
why the technique is not useful.
***
Lantz,
N.
D.,
Luke, W.
L. W.
and May,
E.
C.
(1994).
Target and sender
dependencies
in
the
Anomalous
Cognition
Experiments.
The
Journal
of
Parapsychology, Vol. 58. 285-302.
The published paper describes the primary AC experiment that was
conducted
in
1992 and 1993.
Significant AC was observed. The report concludes that a sender is
not a required element in a successful AC protocol.
Conclusions
Although we have not studied
all protocol issues systematically, we have evolved to an
operating environment that is productive. As guidelines, we believe that for receivers two
AC sessions per day lasting no more than an hour each is near the upper limit. For short
periods of time this pace may be maintained about every other day.
Altered
states of
consciousness such as dreaming or hypnosis appear not to increases AC-quality.
Analysis
How to determine, in
a statistically valid way, whether an information-transfer anomaly
(i.e., AC or RV) exists is
the basis of the analysis problem.
Although simply put, the
analysis of AC data in the laboratory is a complex issue. For example, what constitutes a
control depends upon the question under study. After seeing
an example of AC that has
high visual correspondence with the intended ta
rget, the natural question is, “What
is the
probability that the receiver would respond that way given there were
no target?”
While
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compelling, that question is impossible to answer in any specific instance and can only be
addressed on the average.
In laboratory studies, we ask a different question,
Given a
response, what is the probability that it matches the intended target?
This can be answered
with statistical rigor because the random element, which is necessary in a statistical analysis
of this type,
is the initial target choice rather than the response, which cannot be assumed to
be random.
In the application environment, the analysis problem is compounded in that often the details
of the intended target are not known.
For example, how should the analysis proceed when
the target is the whereabouts of a crashed commercial jet liner?
120.
May, E. C. (1983). A Remote Viewing evaluation Protocol. Final Report (Revised).
SRI International, Menlo Park, CA.
The analysis technique described here is a pre cursor to the application of fuzzy sets.
A score
is computed from
relevance
weighting
factors
of
target and response
“concepts” and a judge’s blind assessment.
162.
May,
E. C„
Humphrey,
B.
S.,
and Matthews,
C.
(1985). A Figure
of Merit
Analysis
for Free-Response
Material,”
Proceedings
of
Presented
Papers,
The
Parapsychological
Association
28th
Annual
Convention,
Tufts,
University,
Medford, MA. 335-372.
The figure-of-merit technique is commonly used within the program at SRI.
The
technique is defined for crisp sets in
this paper.
Later, the definition of figure of
merit was extended to include fuzzy sets.
178.
Humphrey, B. S. (1986). Remote Viewing Evaluation Techniques. Final Report A-
4, Project 1291. SRI International, Menlo Park, Ca.
Ms. Humphrey describes crisp and fuzzy sets and how they have or can be applied to
the analysis of remote viewing.
227.
May, E. C. and Humphrey, B. S. (1988).
Applications
of Fuzzy Sets to Remote
Viewing
Analysis.
Final
Report,
Objective
F,
Task
1,
Project
1291.
SRI
International, Menlo Park, CA.
This is published in the peer-reviewed technical journal ( Journal ofParapsychology
,
Vol.
54, September 1990,
193-228— included
in the document
set).
Fuzzy
set
concepts
are applied to visual correspondence between targets and responses
in
remote viewing experiments.
260.
Luke, W. L. W., Frivold, T. J., May, E. C., and Trask, V. V. (1989). A Prototype
Analysis System for Special Remote Viewing Tasks.
Final
Report, Task 6.0.3,
Project 1291. SRI International, Menlo Park, CA.
The fuzzy set analysis is extended by incorporating an adaptive
learning technique.
A receiver-dependent historical response set might be an a priori
predictor of remote
viewing performance.
***
Spottiswoode,
S.
J.
S.
(1987).
Investigating the Semantics of Remote Perception
with
Similarity
Estimates
and
Multidimensional
Scaling.
Final
Report
to
the
Cognitive Sciences Program, SRI International.
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