SG1I , pproved For Release 2003/09/16 : CIA-RDP96-00791R000200190072-8 The Cognitive Sciences Laboratory 330 Cowper Street, Suite 200, Palo Alto, CA 94301 Voice: 415.327.2007 — Fax: 415.322.7960 ® ' An Employee-Owned Company e-mail: may@hildegard.saicmp.com Memorandum Date: 6 June 1995 To: From: Edwin C. May, Ph.D. EX Re: Project Evaluation I welcome the opportunity for an in-depth, comprehensive, and fair evaluation of the project. In anticipation of such a review, I have been examining the issues for years from the perspective of how I would approach the task incorporating what I have learned from the previous extensive evaluations. In this memorandum, I will describe an efficient, rapid, and comprehensive program review that specifies questions to be answered, evaluation criteria, analysis methodology, and decision thresholds for the continuation of the program. General Approach One difficulty with all the previous reviews was that the evaluation questions were not clearly delineated. Typically they were amalgams of sometimes conflicting issues that include the existence of valid phenomena, external threats, and actual or perceived application potential. Each of the domains imply different evaluation methodologies and have vastly different criteria to assess their validity. Within each there may be additional questions that require different and specific evaluation criteria. For example, the criterion to validate the existence of anomalous cognition (i.e., the acquisition, by mental means alone, of information that is secured by distance, time, or shielding) is considerably different from that to validate the existence of anomalous perturbation (i.e., the influence, by mental means alone, of physically isolated and secured matter). In the application domain, the hit-rate criterion for being useful in one arena such as finding hidden or lost objects might be an order of magnitude lower than is required by those who request architectural-level descriptions of remote locations. In addition, these criteria are relatively independent of the quality of the anomalous cognition and generally can only be specified by the product recipient. Figure 1 shows a schematic representation of the evaluation problem. The evaluation must proceed within the context of the sponsoring agency, in this case from the intelligence perspective. A detailed discussion on the points in Figure 1 follow the schematic. Approved For Release 2003/09/16 : CIA-RDP96-00791R000200190072-8 Page 1
Approved For Release 2003/09/16 : CIA-RDP96-00791R000200190072-8 Congressional Tasking Information (AC) Interaction (AP) Applications Potential Applications i Electronic CM Mechanical CM Resource Allocation Remote Switch Last Resort Remote Behavior Evid . . Evid Applications Biological cx Customer 2 Customer 3 SRI Intl. SRI Intl. : SAIC SAIC ° Other Centers Other Centers Figure 1. Evaluation Domain All anomalous mental phenomena can identified as belonging to two categories: e Information Acquisition. Traditional names for these phenomena include ESP, telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition. We have adopted the term anomalous cognition (AC) because it does not imply a mechanism and is descriptive of the observables. ¢ Physical Interaction. Traditional names for these phenomena include, psychokinesis (PK), materialization and dematerialization, healing, and teleportation. We use the term anomalous perturbation (AP). For research and evaluation, these negative definitions pose a serious problem. That is, AC and AP are what happens when nothing else should. For anomalous cognition, it is relatively straight forward to secure targeted information in an application environment or laboratory experiment from inadvertent leakage to a receiver (i.e., subject, remote viewer, etc.); however, for AP it is very expensive and nearly impossible. Approved For Release 2003/09/16 : CIA-RDP96-00791R000200190072-8 Page 2