Precognition Group Research Ideas

Hey Guys,

Last semester with Richard Mann I did some research on anomalous retroactive influences on cognition and affect. During my studies, I came up with a few ideas a long the way for possible future research ideas. I’ve also included some things to keep in mind throughout the process. Below I’ve summarized some of my ideas.

Christen

Goal:

• Explore the possibility that consciousness may not only be limited to perceptible information in the sensory present and memory of the past, but also to that in the future.
• Examine and understand human evolution, the human mind, human perception and behavior, and the nature of our physical reality to a greater degree

What is psi?

• A sensible, normal, extremely efficient, and continuous aspect of the psychological functioning of all organisms
• Intrinsically unconscious, preconscious, devoid of any available sensory information, broadly active and important, and motivated by personal intentions and needs
• Operate outside of the physical body.

Possible Study Ideas:

1. Is there a statistically significant correlation between stimulus seeking and psi performance?
2. Are those who are ranked as high stimulus seekers more likely to attain a high effect size than those who are not?
3. Design an experiment that tested directly for the retroactive induction of boredom on non-arousing neural stimuli.
4. Do extraverts perform better on psi tasks than introverts? How does this relate to the course of evolution?
5. Test an individual’s ability to recall a set of words to determine the role that rehersal plays in the facility of this process
6. By practicing free recall tests of the sets of words shown to them, are participants able to recall more of the to-be-practiced words than the unpracticed words?
7. Explore the influence of unconscious physiological responses to future events through examining psi performance in one person in the same location, but at different times.
8. Is psi space-time equivalent? Does our consciousness have transtemporal aspects?
9. Do “calm” pictures produce little to no response, while a “extreme” picture would result in a rise in skin conductance, a drop in heart rate, and a drop in finger blood volume? Additionally, does the emotional arousal caused by seeing an extreme picture in the future cause an unconscious physiological “pre-action” in the present? Particularly, do the emotional targets show an orienting “pre-ponse” prior to the exposure of the target photos?

Possible Methods:

1. Use the IAPS: a set of 820 digitized photographs that had been rated on 9-point scales for valence and arousal by both male and female raters
2. Stimulus seeking scale: Participants respond to two different pictures on a scale, consisting of the following statements: “I am easily bored” and “I often enjoy seeking movies I’ve seen before” (reverse scored). All responses were then documented on 5-point scales that spanned from “very untrue” to “very true,” and averaged in a single score extending from 1 to 5.
3. Use strongly negative or erotic pictures
4. Use Zuckerman’s Sensation Seeking Scale (which contains a subscale of Boredom Susceptibility that is significantly correlated with overall extraversion) to determine a measure for erotic stimulus seeking
5. Record the heart rate, blood volume, and electrodermal activity of each participant before, during, and after presentation of each target photo to see whether the body unconsciously responds differentially to two types of future targets
6. Timing of when target photo is selected: directly prior to being displayed to participants or after.
7. Participants take a personality test prior to the experiment: The sensation seeking facet on the Revised NEO Personality Inventory
8. Use random number generators to limit the influence of the experimenter on the results (i.e. the internal PRNG, Marsaglia’s PRNG, and/or the Araneus Alea I RNG)
9. Administering a measure of creativity prior to the experiment
10. Study psi performance in various situations in which persons are engaging in “normal” activities and not striving to demonstrate a paranormal effect
11. Study psi functioning using implicit or behavioral methods (i.e projective techniques) as opposed to self-report measures (i.e. questionnaires) because the variables affecting it act on unconscious levels
12. Minimizing the role of the experimenter as much as possible, by reducing their interaction to that of greeter and debriefer, and leaving the instructions concerning the experiment and all other interactions with the participant up to the computer program

Things to keep in mind:

1. Statistical procedures that are as simple, transparent, and recognizable as possible (i.e. one sample t-tests
2. Individual difference variables that predict psi performance. Studies on psi have indicated that those who are open to experience, believe in the existence of psi, feel that they have experienced psi in their everyday life, and practice inward, mental discipline in which they develop insight into their own dream life (i.e. meditation, yoga, self-hypnosis, biofeedback, etc.) are more likely to demonstrate a psi performance effect than those who do not. Other beneficially characteristics include those with a stronger tendency toward dissociation and absorption; those who are more socially engaged, adventurous, and less anxious; those with motivations to succeed that are consistent at different levels of awareness and relatively invariant over time; those who have a general tendency to be successful across situations, those who are creative and have a capacity to delay cognitive closure; and those who are highly motivated and successful at performance effectively.
3. What is the emotional state of the individual at the time they encounter the material of the ESP task? Findings by Schmeidler and McConnell (1958) suggest that “the subject’s attitude is most important in determining the quality of his or her (extrasensory) perception.”
4. What are the environmental conditions that encourage and facilitate the performance of psi? Environments in which precognition, retroactive influence, and remote viewing are most likely are to occur include: 1) those in which participants engage in practices using anomalous cognition at least twice a week; 2) those that are peaceful; 3) those that are quiet (nothing on the walls, few pieces of furniture, bland); 4) those that promote the participant to be in a calm/meditative state; 5) those in which the participant has no prior knowledge of the target; and 6) those in which the “correct” target is determined by some external random event that it is not known to judges when they are making their evaluations (Brown, 2006, p. 29-31).
5. Other experimental criteria to keep in mind: 1) the participants should not know anything about the target when they conduct the session; 2) the monitor of the experimental session (if a monitor is used) should not know anything about the target; 3) the analyst of the session should not participate in other aspects of the experiment; 4) the tasker should not participate in the collection of information or any other aspect of the experiment; 5) a monitor (if a monitor is used) should not work with multiple participants within the same context of the same experiment; and 6) the participant must engage in the process alone and in an isolated environment.
6. Various confounding variables that could influence the findings of experiments: 1) the mere exposure effect; 2) liking for stimuli; 3) avoiding habituation; 4) using control sessions.
7. Factors that have been found to enhance the expression of the effect in both parapsychological and “perception without awareness” experiments: drawing responses rather than verbalizing them, sensory attenuation, hypnosis, free association, dream sleeping, relaxed reverie, and a positive, encouraging environment