CPYRGHT JPTOVeU U JUUTUOIUC This and the following paper, and/or unsuccessful free~response GESP target. to assist the Koestler Lab in use in our future research. We thought such a initial discussions as to what type of targets revealed that various researchers in our opinions/ideas as to what qualities a succes These differences were further reinforced various targets which we had used in our om those of other researchers with whose targets poo. initial search through sane of the major source books revealed very little coheren regarding free-response targets. This review was to remedy this situation. To this end, parapsychological and psychological experimental models, post hoc observations, and lab lore in consensus regarding psi~conducive target quali first paper will present the findings from findings, including post hoc findings and It should be stressed that this revi exhaustive. ‘We have tried to scout out related journals and newsletters presented represents the findings of a literature review successful (in terms of being accurately ‘perceived Caroline Watt, examining what makes a by by the percpient) The review was undertaken constructing a free-response target pool for review was necessary as we should be looking for group held differing Sful target should have. n we started discussing t research, and S we were familiar. An psychology journals and y arranged information undertaken in an attempt we examined relevant findings and theoretical S of discovering some es and materials. This parapsychological experimental 1 observations. is not meant to be information in the main Research, Journal of Parapsychology, Journal Society for Psychical Research, International Journal of Parapsychology, Research Letter). We have also examined var. (Parapsychological Association . parapsychological source books, the development of psychic abilities, same of literature, and other prominent. books in likely to contain the information ‘we were obviously impossible to examine all of the pos Our survey of the historical literature was neces fact we examined only two main sources, War Phantasms of the Living, 1886). , and Parapsychol same of the popular literature (Journal of the American Society for Psychical Proceedings of the 1 of Parapsychology, psychology Review, and S conference i Foundation), major , regarding the related psychology our Koes which we thought - However, it was ily te limited (in lier‘’s writings and seart related literature. 1 Target-related information fran forced choice studies has not been systematically considered here, the primary reason the two reviews of this literature already Carpenter (1977). However, occasionally will be referred to where appropriate . The most frequent caments regarding sources were generalizations regarding the choice example comments might be made that targets were coloured, intrinsically interesting, constitutes an easy-to~perceive target, to list have been a very tedious task Furthermor for both the author for this anission being by Palmer (1978) and cond: general findings from these sources in this review. targets found in these of target material. For chosen which were vividly pleasant, and so on. camments may be viewed as conveying the experimenters’ While such perspective of what all such comments would and her audience. €, mo cament could be made upon the utility of whatever parameters were adopted when choosing targets unles meta-analysis of the relevant studies, scope of the present undertaking. Thus, S one were to attempt a a project which was far beyond the such comments were not included in this review unless information was provided which related particular target characteristics to the success or failure of the study, and/or the Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDF96-00789R 003100120001 -4
target materials were specifically chosen to be unusual in sane respect, with Avepromed RasReleaset2000408/08 fc? AD BO5s007%88R003100120001-4 The initial task in this undertaking required finding same way to organize the target information in a meaningful and useful manner. This proved to be quite problematic, as target materials and content are seldom one~dimensional. Thus it was required to find a means of categorizing a diverse range of target materials, such as film clips, actual geographical sites, agents” experience of some sensory stimulus, and a large range of assorted pictorial material, each representing varying degrees of denotative and connotative complexity. Indeed, even defining the target in many studies was not a_ straight~forward proposition, For example, in telepathic designs, is the target the agent. “s experience of the target material or the target material itself? In approaching this task it was thought that the target information could perhaps be divided according to the type of target material used (e.g. art prints, film clips, geographical locations, etc.). However, this approach was rejected as in many cases there was not enough available information about a specific target material to allow sensible generalizations to be made. Also explored were various ways of trying to represent and categorize the obtained target information in a multi-dimensional manner, taking into account both denotative and connotative meaning. To this end, attempts were made to apply to the data various three-dimensional conceptualizations of the sort obtained from the semantic differential. Thus, we sought to find one scale which would categorize the obtained target information taking into consideration various connotative components such as evaluation (does the information convey something which is good-bad, clean-dirty, sacred~ profane, etc.), potency (weak-strong, powerless-powerful, light~heavy, etc.), and activity (fast-slow, active-passive, sharp-dull, etc.). This approach of organizing the data was rejected as there was not enough information about most targets to justify a post hoc fitting of the obtained information into such a model. Thus, in the end the task was necessarily defined by the type of information obtained in the literature search. Looking through the data obtained, it was decided that the information could best be organized according to the following target characteristics: colour / black and white; camplex / simple; novel / familiar; abstract / concrete; dynamic / static; form / idea and meaning; emotion; and theme / content. The "working definitions" of these categories will be delineated in the following appropriate sections of this paper. There were many instances where the same data fitted into several different categorizations. For instance, in Krippner, Ullman, et . al. (1972) the target consisted of a randomly chosen word, an art print which portrayed the word, and then a mlti-sensory (auditory, gustatory, olfactory, tactile and kinesthetic) environment relating to the word/picture was created for the agent. Such a target could easily be classified as complex, novel, dynamic, emotional, and as having a_ strong theme. In such situations, the author has attempted to refer to the information in all the relevant categories, but has only provided details of the study in the category where it was first mentioned. Colour / Black and White The colour category referred to all target materials which were coloured, as opposed to black and white. A telepathic dream study by Krippner and Zeichner (1974) obtained a significant degree (p < .002) of psi~hitting using 74 art prints as the targets. A descriptive analysis of 232 Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003100120001-4 CPYRGHT
. - 20001-4 Approvted anh in einen STs ace mae mee ant of Gough and Heilbrun’s Adjective Check List. Three evaluated each of the art prints using this list. If two judges checked picture, that adjective was deemed to descri This analysis revealed that a higher percentage of hits were associated with targets which had blue in them i Orange and yellow were associated with more miss CPYRGHT significant is not reported). comment upon their remote vi associated with various nonanalytic aspects of a target, such as colour. However, in another remote viewing study (Targ, Targ and Lichtarge, 1986) where colour was superimposed over black and white Slides of locations, | it was found that the viewers were unable to perceive the colour. In commenting upon these results the authors speculated that the lack of colour perception may have been due to the restricted number of colour ices which resulted in making the colour ception a more analytic task than the free~response perception of possible target sites. Much of Warcollier’s (1938) work used simple black and white line drawings as targets. However, he observed informally that when colour was in the target, it appeared to be perceived as frequently as was the form of the A non-psi study by Braud, Davis, and Opella (1985) examined the frequency of occurrence of different types of gery in dreaming and ganzfeld states. As this study used no targets, the results could indicate what types of imagery have ana priori Probability of being mentioned more often than others. In relation to this category, they found that dreaming and ganzfeld imagery contain a predominance of colour (among other things). ‘These results could be inent to the findings discussed in this Paper, in that some of these indings could be due to a i i y-occurring types of imagery as of target-related content. It is Possible that the higher frequency of colour imagery in general could lead to spurious observations of success with colour targets unless formally examined. This should be borne in mind when considering anecdotal observations. | Many studies have been conducted using black and white targets, most experiments where the target consisted of simple line However, we found no free-response work which compared the effectiveness of black and white to coloured targets. McMahan and Rhine (1947) conducted a forced-choice study u both coloured and black and white Zener cards. They found a higher erage score with the coloured cards than with the black and white, t the difference was not significant, indicate any clear-cut black and white target ining significant psi research specifically aimed at Comparing the two in a e@ setting would be needed before any conclusions regarding the superiority of one over the other could be made. Information included in the "camplex" and findings about target materials, i which ere complex and/or rich in content. i Zeichner (1974) found a igher percentage of misses with more complex targets (whether the inding was significant was not reported). (1946b) stated that Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RB¥96-00789R003100120001-4
reasongbl ex et ial mgnt mislead subjects. fA TF (1970) hincousecot Belease 2ANO HEIA Bs, CLARE 9 6000128 9FQ034a 0 12800tind subjects but the judges, as camplex targets could make the evaluation j with the creative judge finding numerous eam sequences and complex, detailed significant results have been obtained with very complex target material such as film clips (Psychophysical Research Laboratory, 1985) and the multi-sensory target environment of Krippner, Ullman, et. al. (1972) described in the introduction. Information classified as “simple” included references to targets composed of clear, unequivocally definable, cammon objects and symbols. Most frequently these targets were simple line drawings. Both Carington (1940) and Stuart (1946a) recommended the use of simple, as opposed to compound, drawings so as not to confuse the subject. Warcollier (1963) noted that even though his targets were simple, percipients “ responses still showed considerable distortion. As above, Krippner and Zeichner (1974) found a higher percentage of hits associated with more simple targets as measured by the number of adjectives used to describe the target (again, whether this finding was significant is not reported). Several forced choice studies have examined the use of multiple~aspect targets. Generally these targets would be considered to be ‘simple’ by free-response standards. However, being multi-aspect by definition, they would represent more camplex material than many forced-choice targets. Palmer (1978) in reviewing this work concluded that when multiple-aspect targets were used subjects tended "to score at least as high or higher on the total target than on any of its primary attributes. Such results suggest either that such targets are perceived holistically (even if the overt responses are fragmentary) or that a correct guess on one attribute somehow facilitates correct guesses On other attributes."(Palmer, 1978, p.88) In a review of six studies utilizing dual-aspect targets, Kennedy (1980) examined whether canplex target information was treated as a gestalt or whether the individual parts of the information appeared to be processed separately. No support for or against either mode of information processing was obtained The above findings do not merit any clear conclusions. Before such conclusions could be drawn direct comparison within studies of canplex target material is needed. Novel / Familiar Information relating to unexpected, unfamiliar, unusual and/or incongruous target material was included in the novel category. Cavanna and Servadio (1964) conducted a pilot study to investigate suitable methodologies for studying the occurrence of ESP during states induced by taking hallucinogenic drugs. Their targets were photographs consisting of very incongruous elements, for example an upside-down foot, balancing an artificial eye between the toes. The results were non~significant, although this outcome could have been due to the difficulties involved in attending to a test situation when under the influence of an hallucinogenic drug. Krippner and Zeichner (1974) obtained a higher percentage (whether or not significant was not reported) of hits when targets were described as imaginative and interesting (qualities which could be construed as novel). Ullman and Krippner (1973) rana four subject dream study in which the same target was used for half of the testing nights and a different target used for each REM period for the other half. They observed that the the four participants preferred the Approved For Release 2000/08/0825@1A-RDP96-00789R003100120001-4 CPYRGHT