Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003200240001-0 CPYRGHT Reference Delanoy, D., Morris, R. L., Watt, C., Wiseman, R. (1993). A new meduodology for free-responee testing outwith the luboratory: Findings from experienced participants. §= Paper presented at the 36th Annual Convention of the Parapsychological Association. August 15-19, 1995, ‘Toronto, Canada. Honorton, C. (1985). Meta-analysis of psi ganzicld research: A response to Hyman. Journal of Parapsychology. 49, pp. 51-91. Huuviton, C. (1992). Personal communication. Honorton, C., Berger, R., Varvoglis, M., Quant, M., Derr, P., Schcctcr, L., and Ferrari, 1. (1990). Psi communication in the ganzfeld: Experiments with an auwmated testing system and a comparison with 2 meta-analysis of carlier studies. Journal of Parapsychulugy, 54, pp. 99 - 159. MacKenzie. D. (1992). Attenuatian of airhorne sound between test rooms within the Deparuvent of Psychology, Edinburgh University. Heriol-Watt University Report No. 003/92, July 13, 1992. Mortis, K. L. (1987). Minimising subject fraud in parapsychology laboratories. European Joumal of Parapsychology. 6. pp- 137 - 149. Morris, R. L., Taylor, R., Cunningham, S., McAlpine, §. (1993). Toward replicatiuu and extension of autoganzfcld results. Paper presented to the 36th Annual Convention of the Parapsychological Association, Toronto, Canada, August 15 - 19, 1993. Palmer, J. A. (1977). Attitudes and personality traits in cxpcrimental ESP rescarch. In B. B. Wolman (Fd.), Handhook of Parapsychology, pp- 175 - 201. New _ York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003200240001-0
Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003200240001-0 SAIC FINAL REPORT Project No. 98 - DAN 75 Ganzfeld Experiment Prepared by: Robert L Morris Psychology Department University of Edinburgh Iniroduction This project report describes the completion of Task 3, the conductance of an experimental study comparing scndcr and non-sender conditions using an automated ganzfeld testing procedure. Development of an appropriate experimental protocol and the conductance of pilot studies has been described in reports submitted earlier, Attached is a separate document recently prepared hy Kathy Dalton and myself deseribing in detail the steps taken to develop the system «we used in this study. to answer the reasonable questions raised hy critics about earlier automated ganzfeld procedures. Experimental Methods 1). The main conditions and rationale, There are three conditions: sender absent, with receiver blind as to scnder’s presence or absence; sender present, with receiver blind as to sender’s presence or absencc; and sender present, with receiver and experimenter aware of sender’s presence. Tho first two conditions are designed to provide a tidy comparison of presence and absence of sender. Expectation is the same for both conditions as no one is aware of which condition will be used until the receiver preparation is compleled und the session underway, At that time, the sender enters the target room and is informed by the computer whether Lo stay and send or leave the target room. Experimenter and receiver do not learn whelher ur nut the sender stayed and was active until the session is over and the blind is broken. The third condition is included to enable us to examine the role of expectation, and to provide a candition which more closely replicates the original autoganzfeld procedures. Every third session is in Condition 3; the others are randomly assigned by the computer system RNG to Condition 1 or 2. The study reported here was terminated after 72 sessions, to enable the final report ta he submitted i Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003200240001-0
Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003200240001-0 by the deadline, Further sessions will be conducted, however, until at least 32 have been conducted under each condition. 2). Participant population Our participants have heen recruited from the local artistic community, including musicians, visual artists, writers, actors and dancers, primarily the first two categories. Many were students from local art schools or the Reid School of Music, as well as other local individuals with creative skills who had contacted us through word of mouth, or having seen a poster, or having taken evening courses with us, All were selected to have a positive attitude toward the topic and to have had at least one experience that they felt might have been psychic in nature. Of the 72 participants, 34 were males and 38 were females. Ages ranged from 17 to 61, with most in their early and mid 20’s. Although the earlier ganzfeld participants were on average over ten years older, the highly successful Julliard series as well as the successful Cunningham pilot study completed in Edinburgh in winter of 1993 both drew from crealive sLudent pupulations. 8). Targets All targets were drawn from eighteen target pools of four targets cach, All wore dynamic film clips lasting sixty seconds each, a blend of targets from the earlier pools used in the Honorton autoganzfeld series, as well as new material selected and edited by ourselves and described in an earlier report. 4). Physical Environment. All sessions have been conducted in the suite of rooms plus target room that have been previously prepared and acoustically tested, as described in a previous report and in the accompanying Dalton repert, The target room is 25 meters from the receiver's ruum and the receiver's room is acoustically shielded. 5). Measures of individual differences. All potential participants filled out a 72-item Personal Information Form (PIF) modelled after the onc used in Honorton’a Psychophysical Research Laboratories. Those selected to | participate also completed the NEO Personality Inventory, plus a six-item open- ended creativity questionnaire. The NEO has five scales: Neuroticism, Batraversion, Openness, Apreeableness and Conscientiousness. Each has six subscales, 6). Procedure. The procedure is as described earlier. Participants are met by the member of staff scrving as experimenter (E) and taken to a greeting room within our suite of rooms. Any questionnaires remaining to be filled out and/or collected are taken care of. The member of staff serving as sender (S) is introduced and participates in an informal chat followed by explanation of the procedure by E. S explains the targets and target room, and takes a more active role uuder Lhe Honorton Replication Condition, noting that they will 2 Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003200240001-0
Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003200240001-0 definitely be sending. The participant (P) is then chown the Target Room and further explanation given by S. In the Sender/No Sender condition, P is told that. we expect success either way. P ia then shown E’s room and taken to the Ganzfeld room itself, where P settles in to a comfortable reclining chair. Further instructions are given by E, the microphone and headphones are attached (checked by P for comfort of sound level), and the eye shields are attached. B and S give final words of encouragement to P, and then depart. S proceeds to the targct room. If in the Sender/No Sender Condition, S waits until the computer system randomly determines which of the two it is and asks 8 on the video sereen either to remain and send or leave the room. Ifthe latter, S goes elaawhera and engages in some quiet activity. lf S is actually sending, then § reclines in a comfortable chair, dons headphones and goes through the relaxation procedure that P is experiencing. The sending period follows next, for just under a half hour. During this time § watches a minute-lang film clip that has just been randomly selected by the computer system. It is shown eight times, with approximately two minute intervals in between. 3 becomes absorbed in the contents of the clip and may draw scenes from the clip to facilitate focussing on it. S can hear P's impressions and may attempt to reinforce mentally those impressions that secm to be accurate. S can hear anything that P says, during both the sending period and the judging procedure that. follawe. Onee judging is completed and the data entered into the computer, S rejoins E and P in the experimental suite to diacuss the session. Meanwhile, once E and S have left P, E goes to the experimenter room and plays a 13-minute relaxulion Lape that is heard by both P and & (if there is an § for that session). Iollowing this, P hears while novise and attempts to gain impressions of the target film, P has been encouraged to speak uul loud any impressions or other mentation that occurs during this time. All such mentations as well as the judging process are tape recorded for future refarence. J can hear P and write down as much of P’s description as possible. At the end of the impression period (same as the sending period) if there is an S), E asks P how long the period seemed to last, and then reads aloud P’s impressions, to remind P and to allow P the opportunity to elahnrata, F then asks P several queslions about their impressions, e.g. any that were surprising, vivid, unusual, or frequent, asks whether P felt there was a sender, and asks for an estimate of how deeply into an altered state P felt they had been. E alsu rates P’s impressions for abundance, amount of cognitive references, proportion of imprassions that is judgeable, bizarreness of impressions, lability of impressions and E's own expectation of success. Then F is asked to remove the eye shields and turn on the TV monitor in their room. The cumputer then displays all four film clips in the judging pool, to E on B's monitor and to P un P’s monitor. E and P discuss the four clips, with P 3 Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003200240001-0
Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003200240001-0 noting any correspondences and B then suggesting for P’s consideration any additional possible correspondences that E noticed but P did not mention. P can review each clip as often as desired. P then rates all four clips from one to 99, doublechecks them, and E enters those ratings inta the computer data disk. E also rates all four clips without telling P, and enters those into the computer as well. Once the data are stored, the computer reveals the correct target and prints out four copies of the data for the session, including all the conditions, the judgings and the target identity. Thus the data are stored permanently both on disk and on immediately generated multiple hard copies. E, P and 5 convene at the end of the session (even if there was no sender) to discuss how it went. 7). Results At present, 72 trials have been completed, 24 in the Replication Condition, 25 in Send and 28in No Send. The results for direct hits as rated by the participants were as follows: Overall, 82% hils, p=.112, h=,15; Replication, 37.5% hits, p=.121, h=.27; Send, 26% hits, p=.58, h=,02,; and No Send, 32% hils, p=.278, b=.16. Although not statistically significant, these results are encouraging. The Replication Condition results are comparable in percent hits and effect size to the earlier Honorton work with Dynamic Targots (40% hits, h=,82), Our Sender - No Sender Conditions differed from his conditions, 20 it ig difficult to draw direct comparisons. In general, our overall results compared favourably with his overall results (24% hits, h=.20), Thus, with even tighter conditions, we still appear to be obtaining the ganzfeld effect although at this stage not quite so strongly as Honorton’s group. Strength of results did not differ significantly among the Lhree sending conditions either by direct hit or sum of ranks measures. For both measures the Replication Condition (sender known by all to be present) had the best results but by a slender margin, with the No Sendor Condition next best by direct hit tally and Sender next best by sum of ranks. With larger N these small differences might became meaningful. or might disappear entirely. A second component of our analysis was to compare the Send - No Send direct hit sessions lu see if there was any indication that any information coming through would do 50 in different ways. As described earlier, certain assessments of the characteristics of the session by P or E were gathered after the impression period was over but before the judging period began, Two emerged as significant or nearly so. P's were asked to estimate the duration of the impression period. When the sender was present, P's cetimated duration was 24.17 minutes on average; when there was no sender, the estimate was only 12.19 seconds (U=3, p<.005, 2-tail). Thus when there was no sender, P's felt Lhe time bad passed more quickly. Additionally, E rated each session as ta how mundane or bizurre the impression had seemed to them, with respect to 4 Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003200240001-0
Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003200240001-0 ganzfold sessions in general, on a seven-point seale. When sendcr was present, E rated the bizarreness at 2.5 on average; when sender was absont, E rated bizarrenesa higher, at 2.28 on average. (U9, p=.06. 9-tail). Thus the absence of the sender seemed to allow more nnnaual or idiosyncratic imagery to come through, With regard to other measures, E's rating of the lability of impressions was nonsignificantly higher in the absence of the sender: E’s rating of mentation abundance was uonsiznificantly lower in the absence of the sender; and TI’s rating of depth of state achieved was essentially the same whether or not thee was a sender. Finally we had asked P to comment uu whether or not they felt a sender had actually been preaent during the session. Results were right at chance both when sender was present and not present. Di : The above findings suggest that we are obtaining an effect with our autogan2feld procedure, despite having taken various measures to tighten the procedure over those used in previous research. There is evidence as well that when the sonder is present the participant subjectively feels that the experience is lasting longer and there is morc mundane mentation reported, There is also very weak evidence that when sender is present the impressions are more abundant and the themes are more consistent, less labile. Combining these themes, it may be that when interactive with a sender, more information comos into awareness but it tends tn have a greater component of safe, cohesive, business a8 usual imagery, which is added on and may make the raRsion seem longer. If there is no sender, at some level one is freer to be off on one’s own and let fresh and unusual impressions emerze mure naturally. Further data are neoded to examine these trends in more detail, Future research The present series will be extended through 96 sessions, nding in mid-June, at which time the existing trends will be reanalyzed and a fuller analysis done of . the data as a whole, including an examination of individual differences correlates both overall and within each condition. Mixperimenter ratings will be analysed descriptively as well; at present E ratings appear slightly more positive than P ratings, but are not included here as they were not part of a preplanned analysis. More detailed examination of the mentation reports under the three conditions will also be done. A followup study building on these findings is intended, resources permitting. We will also be exploring certuin modifications of the technique to streamline it and facilitate replication attempts hy other researchers, such as shortening the mentation period and modifying the blind judging protocol, We continue to be impressed by the ganzfeld as a technique for producing reasonably consistent effects, but it is lubour-intensive and somewhat expensive to do with proper safeguards, i) Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003200240001-0
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