Approved For Releas8e#001/03/07 :.CIA-RDP96-00787RQ90400100021-6 Repetition of French Experiments with Mice 3 The individual differences of the French mice were not a con- spicuous factor in the results. Since different strains had been used, it seemed likely that there would be no great experimental risk in using various strains of American mice in the attempted replication. Similarly, there were modifications in the construction of the ap- paratus, which was built with the aid of information provided by the French authors, The first experiment was begun and largely completed during the summer of 1969 at the Institute for Parapsychology, although a com- plete analysis of the results had to be left for a later time, since the two senior authors had enrolled in graduate school. The general procedure of this experiment was to put the test animal into a box which was divided by a low partition into two equal parts. The floor grid of the box was wired electrically and there was an electronic selector which randomly chose one side or the other as the side of the box which would receive an electric charge for each trial. The animal was free to jump from side to side. If it chose the “wrong” one, it received a shock: if it chose the “right” one, it did not. An important aspect of the experiment, as in the French work, was the elimination of those trials in which psi probably was not operating. This “nonrandom” behavior was of two kinds: static and mechanical, A “static” trial occurred when the animal, even though shocked, continued to stay in the same side of the box, possibly because it did not feel the shock, or because it was too tired or too frightened to jump, or for some similar reason. If the animal was shocked and immediately jumped in response, this was to be ex- pected; it was therefore called “mechanical” behavior. The “ran- dom” trials, on which the evaluations were based, were the ones in which the animal jumped for no apparent reason. Any change of side after the five-second shock period qualified the following trial as random. . The selection of random-behavior trials in the present experiment differed from that in the French work in the following way: the French monitored the animal’s position only at the start of each five- ° second trial. If the animal jumped once after the trial, their equip- ment recorded a change of sides; but if it jumped twice (or any even Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000400100021-6
Approved For Releas&#001/03/07 :-CIA-RDP96-00787RQ90400100021-6 . - 4 The Journal of Parapsychology on number of times) before the next five-second trial, it would be in the original side of the cage and would appear not to have jumped at all in the interval between trials. Our apparatus recorded the animal’s position continually and therefore made it possible to sift out many more random-behavior trials from the total data; and if the scoring rate was high, a greater incidence of psi would be indicated in the data. A further difference caused by their selective monitoring was that their animal was in the dark except immediately before and during the five-second trial. With our apparatus, the light beams, which were the animal’s source of light, remained on constantly. NO Ree ecg ASR PLZ AROS aE AE gem MORRO mo ©: Apparatus* The testing apparatus comprised six components: a shock box, a position indicator, a random number generator, a logic circuit, a shock control, and a recording apparatus. A. The shock box, or testing cage, was a clear, bottomless lucite ' box measuring 614” x 614” x 6”. It rested on an electrically wired grid. A low barrier 114” high and 14” thick divided the cage into two halves (A and B in Figure 1), each half wired independently. (See Figure 1.) B, On those sides which were at right angles to the barrier, there were mirrors, used in conjunction with a light source and a photocell in each half of the box to indicate the animal’s position. If the reflection of the light beam in the mirror was cut, the animal was considered to be present; if it remained intact to shine on the photocell, the animal was considered not there. The shock box, with the position-indicating apparatus, was in a dimly lit room separate from the remainder of the equipment. The separation varied from an adjacent room, at first, to one that was two floors distant later in the experiment. C, The random target generator was an electronic device which randomly picked side A or B as the target side for each trial. There was one target selection (and therefore one trial) every minute. The random number generator produced a rapidly oscillating sine wave *The main work of designing and constructing the apparatus, including the « random number generator, was done by Allen Mayo at the Institute for Parapsy- chology. Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000400100021-6
Approved For Releaség#001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787RQ90400100021-6 Repetition of French Experiments with Mice 5 Fic. 1. Diagram of testing cage. which caused a flip-flop circuit to go from state A to state B, or the reverse, with the start of each full cycle it produced. Thus, when a target was called for, the flip-flop stopped in either state A or B, The randomness came from the fact that the error of the timing de- vice calling for a target was tens of thousands of times greater than the period of the wave. Thus, the side at which the flip-flop stopped was not predictable other than by a chance distribution, The randomness of the random number generator was checked before the first series started. The results of several thousand trials showed only.a chance variation (CR =.7), with slightly more tar- gets for side B than side A. A further randomness check was carried out later on the actual targets generated during the experiment. The CR of .87 indicates that the distribution between the A and B sides was well within the range of chance variation, with slightly more targets on side A than side B. D. The logic circuit integrated the information from the target generator and the position indicator and sent a shock to the proper side if one was needed. If the position of the animal and the selected target side matched, a five-second shock was sent to the side the animal was in at the initiation of the trial, and no shock was sent Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000400100021-6
« Approved For Releas#s#001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787RQ0400100021-6 6 The Journal of Parapsychology to the other side. If the target and position did not match, no shock was sent. Thus, the animal could be shocked only if he was in the target side at the start of a trial, and only as long as he remained in that side. However, at times the animal might have his body on one side and his tail on the other, or he might be changing sides, so that his position was ambiguous. In such a case both beams or neither beam would be cut and no target would be chosen. When such a “mistrial” occurred, no shock would be sent to either side. This part of the apparatus provided safeguards against the possibility that mechanical failure, such as a burned-out bulb, might give spurious results. It was difficult for an animal to jump into a shock, since he would have to jump at least twice within the five seconds to land in the side of the cage that was given a charge. E. The shock-control device determined the intensity of the electric charge given to the animal. The shocking voltage was indi- vidually adjusted for each animal at each run to give a voltage suffi- cient to make him move away but not react strongly. During the first part of the series the shock grid was charged by alternating cur- rent; later, the voltage was supplied by a battery in order to provide better control of the intensity of the shock. F. The recording device was a Grass two-channel polygraph, one channel of which continuously recorded the animal’s position and the other, his position at the time of the trial as well as whether or not a shock had been sent to the animal. From this information the tar- get chosen could be determined. The lower channel on the chart was the position indicator. (See Figure 2.) Side A of the cage was recorded at the bottom of the channel; side B, just above it. The position of the pen indicated the animal’s position. For a move of the pen to count as a change of position, it had to go at least 1 cm. past the midline into the opposite half of the area. Each minute, the pen automatically centered for the five-second trial period, and in checking the data this allowed a ma- chine judgment (rather than a human judgment) to be made about what position the animal was in at the initiation of the trial and whether a jump occurred during the trial period. The upper channel was a shock indicator. A full-scale deflection of the pen indicated that the animal had received a shock; a half- Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000400100021-6
4 Approved For Releaséw#001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787RQ90400100021-6 oo NA OM ’ + N Repetition of French Experiments with Mice ANIMAL POSITION SHOCK INDICATOR « Shock Indicator "Shows which side of the cage the animal is on at the time of the trial and whether it was shocked or not. » Animal Position Pen: Records the animal’s position at all times, except during the 5-second trial period. The ben moves from side A to side B and back as the animal moves, During the 5-second trial period the pen moves to the center to indicate the trial, Miss: When the animal makes a miss, it is shocked and the shock is recorded on the Shock Indicator by a long stroke of the pen to the side where the animal is located at the time of the trial. . Hit: When the animal makes a hit, there is no shock and this fact is recorded on the Shock Indicator by a short stroke of the pen to the side where the animal is located at the time of the trial. . Mechanical Behavior: Results when the animal jumps only in immediate re- sponse to a shock, . Static Behavior: Indicates no jumping activity between trials. - Random Behavior: Results when the animal jumps from side to side without an apparent reason; ie. not in immediate response to shock. . Mistrial: Indicates that at the time of the trial either both light beams reached the photocell unbroken or that neither reached it. The animal may have been on the barrier in this case, and no shock was sent to either side of the cage. ANIMAL POSITION SHOCK INDICATOR V PIS @ PIS VY apis g apis Fic, 2, Facsimiles of two polygraph charts, Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000400100021-6 V PIS @ PIS VY 4oPIS g apis ene