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The Cognitive Sciences Laboratory
330 Cowper Street, Suite 200, Palo Alto, CA 94301
Voice: 415.327.2007— Fax: 415.322.7960
e-mail : may^Jaildegat'd
. saicmp.com
Memorandum
Date:
25 July
1 995
To;
|
From: Edwin C. May, Pli.D.
Re:
SAIC Experiment Database
^c:
Michael Muniford, Ph.D and Andy Rose, Ph.D. (ATR)
[ have been asked to identify a complete list of experiments that were conducted at Science
Applications
International
Corporation
(SAIC)
from
February
1991
through
September 1994.
I his memorandum lists the experiments, describes their justification, and
tabulates their overall results.
In addition, complete references to the original reports will
be provided.
Background
It is instinctive to understand the context in which SAIC was contracted to conduct research
into anomalous mental phenomena.
Following the example of the previous
Cognitive
Sciences Program at SRI International, we were asked
to
create a
Scientific
Oversight
Committee (SOC) that would be actively involved in monitoring the research. The SOC
?
s
charter was to:
* Review and approve a detailed written protocol including all statistical analyses, for each
proposed experiment.
* Exercise unannounced
drop -in
privileges to observe experiments m progress.
• Review, in written form, the final reports and the conclusion of each study.
• Provide guidelines for future research.
To comply with a Congress!opal-directed requirement, the first four months of the contract
were used
to prepare a 5-year integrated research
plan.
Following
that,
technical and
human-use protocols had to be officially approved before any experimentation could begin.
Thus, data collection began in January 1992. Experiments continued, albeit with gaps to
prepare and seek approval for more protocols, through March, 1994,
All
approved
technical
and
human-use
(i.e,,
Institutional
Review
Board)
protocol
documents, final reports, and SOC comments am on file with the sponsor and arc available
for review.
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Experiment Database Summary
AH experiments may be found
in one
of two
documents
or
additionally
in
separate
publications:
(1)
May,
E.
C„
Luke,
W,
L.
W.,
and
Lantz,
N.
D.
(3
February
1993).
Phenomenological Research and Analysis. Final Report: 6.2 and 6.3.
(2)
May,
K
<
Luke,
W.
I
...
W.
?
and
.lanms,
( 1
L.
(29
September
1994).
Phenomenological Research and Analysis. Final Report.
Ten experiments were conducted by
ftAid under government contract. These experiments
include all pilot and formal series, and they contain all the trials that were conducted (i.e. f
theie is no file-drawer problem, by definition)
Table 1 shows the summary
information
for the 10 SAiC experiments.
Table 1.
SAIC Experiment Database (1991-1994)
| Number
Experiment
Reference
Trials
Effect Size
P-Value
j
Taree.1 Dependencies
1 (11-30)
200
0.124* 0.071
0.040
AC of Binary Targets
1 (31-38)
300
0.123*0.058
0.017
MEG Replication
1 (3948)
12,000s
MCE
MCE
AC With Binary Coding
1 (49-56)
-0.067*0.158
0.664
AC in Lucid Dreams (E-Line)
1 (58-60)
0.088*0.204
0.333
AC in Lucid Dreams (Pilot)
1 (58-60)
0.368*0.218
0.046
Remote Observation
2 (2-3)
0.361*0.144
0.006
ERD EEG Investigation
!
2(3-11)
7,000s
MCE
MCE
ERD AC Behavior
2(3-11)
0.303x0.120
0.006
EntopyTI
2 (11-12)
0.550*0.105
9.1x10®
References are shown as Document Number (Beginning- Final Page ). Those experime
nts
that are
underlined may
also be found
elsewhere.
Experiments
and
10 have been
published in the peer-reviewed journal Journal of Parapsychoiogy, Vol. 58. 285-302, and
experiment number 7 may be found in an Institute of Noetic Sciences publication. (These
additional documents have been made available to the review team.)
Experiments 3 and 8 were physiologically
oriented and the number of trials
shown is
the
approximate number of stimuli
.
The effect size and its associated p-value
is computed across all conditions
and across
all
subjects and is provided as a conservative guideline.*
jfc
For tins casual in eta-analysis, I combined, post hoc, the results across receivers and conditions, With
some exceptions, it is not my policy to combine data across individuals.
I believe this is incorrect if one
is studying the parameters of exceptional perfennanee.
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Experiment
Details
Thm section includes the raison d’ £tre and conclusions for each experiment listed in Table
1.
1 he protocol details may
be found
in the technical proposals to the SOC and in the
formal descriptions either in the primary two reports or their associated publications.
1.
Target and Sender Dependencies
In anomalous cognition (AC)* experiments,
it is important to know if the quality of the data
depend upon whether a second individual (i.e., a sender) is focusing attention on the target
material.
Secondly,
it is claimed in the Gan zteld literature that dynamic targets (i.e., video
clips) are "better” targets than are static ones (i.e., photographs).
We found that a aender is not a necessary condition for good AG and,
contrary to the
Ganzfeld results, we found that static targets produced stronger AC than did the dynamic
ones
In addition, we found
a
significant correlation
with
the quality ot AC and
the
gradient of Shannon entropy for
the
static targets.
The effect size quoted in Table
is
computed across sender and target conditions.
These results led to the
publication of Managing the
Target-Pool Bandwidth:
Possible
Noise Reduction for Anomalous Cognition Experiments, Journal ofParapsychology
, Vol
SH, 303-313 and a revised
version of Shannon Entropy as an Intrinsic T arget Property:
Toward
a
Reductionist
Model
of
Anomalous
Cognition,
in
press,
Journal
of
Parapsychology and Appendix D in document number 2
2.
Enhancing Detection of AC of Binary Targets
There are a few examples in
the
literature that suggest that information theory and error
correction may increase the de tection of AC.
This experiment was designed to enhance
binary hitting rate by applying sequential analysis to a sequence of
single AC decisions at
the binary
bit level.
Two novices
receivers and one experienced one contributed
100
overall binary trials.
I he, experienced receiver (i.e., 531) who had produced significant results in 8KI
s random
number generator experiment in
1979, produced a significant result in
this experiment.
Although this individual ‘s result was significant
at the 10 7 level, the effi ciency was low.
1 hat is, 213 individual binary calls were required to eventually arrive at a single sequential
analysis decision. The effect size and p-value shown in Table 1 are computed for all three
receivers; however, the signilicant combined result is exclusively because of receiver 53 1
3.
Magnetoencephalograph
Replication
At the close of the SRI International Cognitive Sciences Program, May
et
al.
reported
significant neuromagnetic responses to
seasonally and physically isolated image stimuli
The stimuli lasted for 100 ms and consisted of spatially low frequency sinusoidal grating.
This experiment was an extensive replication attempt with substantially more data.
Although the preliminary results were promising
,
there was no
statistical evidence of an
efiect
I hat is the eflort and control conditions were statistically inseparable, and care was
A definition of terms may be found in the Glossary at the end of this memorandum
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