I CN TH E AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH, INC. OFFICERS DR. C. B. ScoTr JONES ............................................ President DR.HoYT L. EDGE ........................... : * , , * , * * I * * * I First Vice-President DR. STANLEY KRuTNER ................................... Second Vice-President MARILYN MALE ......... Treasurer ELEANOR FRIEDE ................................................... Secretary BOARD OF TRUSTEES Dr. Irvin L. Child (April* 1991) Marilyn Male (April* 1990) Dr. Hoyt L. Edge (April* 1992) Dr. John A. Palmer (April* 1991) EIeanorFriede . ~ (April* 1992) Abram Samuels (April* 1991) Dr. Robert G. Jahn (April* 1991) Dr. Nancy Sondow (April* 1991) Dr. C. li- Scott Jones (April* 1991) Ian Stevenson, M.D. (Apffl* 1991) Dr. Staroy Kripp- (April* 1990) The month may differ. Ln STAFF Ln Interim Executive Director, Howard Zimmerman Director of Administration; Newsletter Editor, Donna L. McCormick 04 Director of- Public Information & Education, Patrice Keane 04 0 Journal Editor, Rhea A. White 0 Statistical Editor, Dr. Jessica Utts Emeritus Chester F. Carlson Research Fellow, Dr. Karlis Osis 00 9 PURPOSE AND SCOPE OF THE SOCIETY 1. ghe investigation of telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, veridical halluci- natiomband dreams, psychometry, and other forms of paranormal cognition; of phenorona bearing upon the hypothesis of survival of bodily death; of claims of paranoQVaI physical phenomena such as psychokinesis and poltergeists; the study of autom iting, trance speech, alterations of personality, and other subconscious pr,cesl 7nsofar as they may be related to paranormal processes; in short, all types of phe mena called parapsychological or paranormal. 2. -The collection, classification, study, and publication of reports dealing with the abS phenomena. Readers are asked to report incidents and cases. 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The J0QkNAL is an affiliated publication of the Parapsychological Association CL The journal of the American Society for Psychical Research (ISSN 0003-1070) is Published quarterly in January, April, July, and October by -the American Society for Psychical Research, 5 West 73rd Street, New York, NY 10023. Second-class postage paid at New York,NY, andadditional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to American Society for Psychical Research, 5 West 73rd Street, New York, NY 10023. Copyright a1989 by, the American Soci*'for Psychical Resear .ch, Inc, Annual sub_ scription: $35 to individuals, $50 to institutions ($10 additional for overseas postage). THE JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH VOLUME 83 OCTOBER,,r.,, 1989 NUMBER 4 Possible Role of Intuitive Data Sorting in Electrodernial Biological Psychokinesis (Bio-PK) WILLIAM G* BRAUD AND MARILYN J. SCHLITZ' ABSTRACT: Forty volunteers participated in a study designed to test a hypothesis derived from an intuitive data sorting (IDS) interpretation of the biological psychokinesis (bio-PK) effect. Each of 8 influencers attempted to exert a distant mental influence upon the physio- logical activity of 4 subjects in a distant room, isolated from all conventional sensorimotor communication. Each laboratory visit consisted of two 15-minute sessions, and each session was divided into 12 influence epochs during which the subject's electrodermal activity (EDA) was monitored and computer-scored. The influencer attempted to decrease the EDA of the distant subject during six of the epochs and increase the EDA during the remaining six epochs. One session was conducted under a new condition in which the influencer was provided- with multiple opportunities for intuitive data sorting. In the other session, the in- fluencer had only a single opportunity for epoch-initiation and intuitive data sorting. An "informational" (IDS) interpretation of the bio-PK effect would predict better psi scoring under the multiple than under the single opportunity condition, whereas a "causal" (psycho- kinetic) interpretation would predict equivalent scoring under the two conditions. The ob- tained results (significant psi hitting in the single condition, nonsignificant scoring in the multiple condition, and an almost significant scoring superiority of the single over the mul- tiple condition) were more consistent with the causal (PK) than with the informational (IDS) interpretation of the bio-PK effect. Possible artifacts were analyzed and discounted, and the issue of multiple "levels" of IDS potential was treated. ers at the Mind Science Foundation For a number of years, research have been engaged in studies of the distant mental influence of biological systems (i.e., "biological psychokinesis" or "bio-PK"). Although the biological target systems for some of these studies have included the spa- tial orientation of fish, the locomotor activity of small animals, and the rate of hemolysis of human red blood cells, the system with which we have worked most often has been the electrodermal activity of another An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 30th annual convention of the Parapsychological Association, August 5-8, 1987, at Edinburgh University, Edinburgh, Scotland. 1r Ln Ln 04 c-4 0-) 00 9 (D < 00 0 00 0 -0- 0 0 C14 4) W M Z X " 0 LL > 0 CL CL < 290 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research person. The experimental protocol of a typical electrodermal bio-PK ex- periment is as follows. The subject sits in a comfortable room watching a random colored-lights display and listening to random tones through head- phones while his or her electrodermal activity is monitored via palmar electrodes. Concurrently, an "influencer" in another room (isolated from all possible conventional sensorimotor interactions with the subject) at- tempts to mentally influence the ongoing electrodermal activity of the subject according to a predetermined schedule unknown to the subject. The subject's spontaneous electrodermal activity (skin resistance re- sponse) is objectively assessed during each of the ten 30-second influence periods and each of ten 30-second noninfluence control periods by means ,,L of an analog-to-digital converter interfaced with a microcomputer. By 0 chance, the average electrodermal activity during influence epochs should 0 equal that during control epochs. A statistically significant excess of elec- Ln Ln trodermal activity in the prescribed direction (i.e., higher influence than 0 control scores under an "activate-aim" condition or lower influence than C*4 C*4 control scores under a "calm-aim" condition) provides evidence for a psi 0 effect in the experiment. The protocol just described has been used in a series of I I electrodermal a) 00 bio-PK experiments in which a total of 174 subjects have participated. An 0 appropriate method for assessing the statistical significance of the entire 9 series is the z-score addition method described by Rosenthal (1978, 1979, a) 1984, p. 89). Here, one converts the studies' obtained p values into z scores, sums thesez scores, and divides by the square root of the number W of studies being combined; the result is itself a z score that can be evalu ated by means of an associated p value. This method, when applied to the U present data, yields an overall z = 3.98, which has an associated p . ..000034. Thus, the observed psi effect is a reliable and robust one. 00 0- We have been interpreting the obtained psi effect as a psychokinetic c0 (causal) influence of the subject's autonomic nervous system activity by 'Othe distant, isolated influencer. An alternative possibility, however, is that the effect may be contributed totally or partially by an "intuitive data N sorting" (IDS) process. The influencer or experimenter psychically, yet unconsciously, scans the future electrodermal activity stream, of the sub '5 ject and begins an experimental session at a time that maximizes the de- gree of fit between the ongoing electrodermal activity and the prescribed schedule of influence and control epochs. Stated somewhat differently, the o experimenter might psychically and unconsciously sort the subject's elec- LL trodermal data into two "bins" so that significantly more of the activity in 'D 4) the prescribed direction falls in the influence bins than in the control bins 0 (see May, Radin, Hubbard, Humphrey, & Utts, 1985). According to this CL informational" model, psi functioning is still in evidence, but it is of an CL informational rather than a causal (psychokinetic) sort. The present study was designed to test a hypothesis suggested by the IDS model. According to that hypothesis, the effectiveness of intuitive data sorting is proportional to the number of opportunities provided for Intuitive Data Sorting and Bio-PK 291 such sorting. It was hypothesized that a single opportunity to psychically sort a future data stream may not be as effective as multiple opportunities for such sorting. Thus, the scoring rate might be greater if the person who initiates the sampling epochs in a bio-PK session is given the freedom to initiate each epoch at whim (and have, for example, 20 opportunities for intuitive data sorting) than it would be if the person were allowed only a single data-sorting opportunity. On the other hand, according to a causal, psychokinetic interpretation of the bio-PK effect, the scheduling of the sampling epochs should not influence the results; that is, the PK effect should be the same whether the influencer or experimenter has many or few degrees of freedom in deciding when to initiate sampling epochs. A pilot study was conducted to test the above hypothesis. Twentyj*ve individuals participated in that study, with 5 serving as influencers anG20 serving as subjects. Each influencer worked with 4 subjects. Each visg to the laboratory consisted of two bio-PK sessions in which the influelger attempted to increase and to decrease the subjects' electrodermal acti'my, 15 mentally and at a distance, according to a prespecified schedule. Forcme C*4 of these two sessions, the influencer was able to initiate all 20 eleUtFo- dermal activity sampling epochs by means of button presses, and thuRhe or she had multiple opportunities for intuitive data sorting. For the Coer session, only one opportunity for IDS was made available to thtn- fluencer. In that pilot study, the scoring rate did not differ significantl34or the two conditions, although performance was slightly better in the *I- tiple opportunities condition. The absence of an overall psi effect in the pilot study may have ~en due to negative psychological factors attributable to the extreme lengtaof the sessions (often approaching 21/2 hours for the entire two-session Uo- cedure). In an effort to counter this negative factor, a number of changes were instituted in order to shorten the length of the sessions for this fo&al study. We originally had planned to have the best two influencers oahe pilot study serve as the influencers for the formal study, each wor ng with 16 subjects. We decided, instead, to ask 8 influencers to work 114 subjects each. This greatly lessened the workload of the influencers.gVe also drastically reduced the length of each session by (a) reducing She number of sampling epochs from 20 to 12, (b) eliminating the 5-milpte adaptation period at the beginning of each session, (c) reducing the rgge of the variable delay between button press and sampling epoch initimon (see below) to 30-40 seconds, and (d) reducing the duration of the btak between the subject's two sessions to one minute. As a result of tylese changes, the new session lengths for the formal trials were approxim,~&ly 15 minutes each, and the entire two-session procedure could be accAm- plished in approximately 40 minutes, rather than the 21/2 hours requireod-in the pilot study. It was our hope that these new conditions would rende!!~he sessions less trying and would produce more optimal moods in all eApkri- mental participants. 292 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research METHOD Subjects Forty individuals participated in this formal study. Eight persons served as influencers and 32 persons served as subjects; each influencer worked with 4 subjects. The first author served as experimenter for 16 sessions, and the second author served as experimenter for the remaining 16 ses- sions. One of the 8 influencers was the person who had had the highest performance record in the pilot study; this was also the person who had been least bothered by the lengths of the pilot sessions and who had been most enthusiastic about participating in further experiments. The second influencer had participated successfully in prior electrodermal bio-PK ex- periments. The third influencer was a psi researcher who had a history of successful psychokinesis performances in his own experiments. The fourth and fifth influencers had participated successfully in several pre- vious psi experiments at the Foundation. The sixth and seventh influencers were very interested in psychic healing and had had ostensible psi healing interactions in their everyday lives. The eighth influencer had participated in previous psi experiments at the Foundation as a subject and as a student experimenter and had expressed an interest in the bio-PK formal experi- ment. Four influencers were male and 4 were female. The 32 subjects were selected from a pool of persons expressing interest in participating in. bio-PK and other psi experiments. Some participants had previously enrolled in workshops presented by the two authors. Others were undergraduate students from a local college who participated as part of a course requirement. Eight (one-fourth) of the subjects had participated in prior psi experiments conducted at the Foundation; 24 (three-fourths) of the subjects were first-time participants. Twenty-two of the subjects were female and 10 were male. Apparatus Experimental apparatus consisted of silver/silver chloride palmar elec- trodes, a skin-resistance amplifier, an analog-to-digital converter inter faced with a microcomputer, and audio equipment. This equipment was identical to that described in previous reports (Braud & Schlitz, 1983; Schlitz & Braud, 1985), with a single exception: A momentary contact push button was added so that the influencer could initiate sampling epochs. Procedure The procedure was similar to that described in Braud and Schlitz (1983). The experimenter met with the influencer and the subject in a Intuitive Data Sorting and Bio-PK 293 comfortable office, explained the purpose and procedure of the experi- ment, and provided consent forms and general information questionnaires for the influencer and subject to complete. The experimenter then escorted the two participants to the influencer's room and showed the subject where the influencer would be stationed during the experiment. The influencer remained in one room while the experimenter escorted the subject to the subject's room, which was located in an entirely different suite area across an outside corridor and 20 meters away from the influencer's room. Con- ventional sensorimotor communication between these two rooms was not possible. The subject was seated in a comfortable recliner chair (which remained in an upright position throughout the experiment), and the experirt~enter attached two silver/silver chloride electrodes (7 mm diameter) filleGwith In s of partially conductive electrode gel to the subject's right palm by m adhesive electrode collars. The subject was told that he or sshee uld make no deliberate effort to relax or to be especially active, but sho& try to maintain a moderate level of autonomic activation throughout Q ex- periment. This was to be accomplished by watching randomly cligging patterns of colored squares of light on a 12-inch display screen 2 ~--ters away and by listening to prerecorded computer-generated randornmones through headphones. The subject was asked to allow his or her minito be as "random" as possible-observing thoughts, images, and feelialks as YD they spontaneously arose, without clinging to any of them. The 'Were asked to make themselves open to and accepting of a distant mentaRnflu- ence by the influencer, but not to try to consciously guess when in ence attempts might be made. The subject was, of course, unaware ~ the number, timing, or scheduling of the various influence attempts * T The experimenter returned to the influencer's room and consBed a sealed envelope to learn the influence epoch sequence for the sess9n. A set of these sequence envelopes had been prepared beforehand by;pr as- sistant who was not otherwise involved in the experiment. The en'Zopes had been prepared using a table of random numbers with a meth& that minimized the preparer's degree of freedom in making arbitrary deasions about where to enter the table and how to assign conditions to the random ers (see Stanford, 1981, for the rationale underlying this m4od).- numb nce wag2to be The envelope indicated whether the influence epoch seque . 4) calm-activate-activate-calm (CAAC) or its opposite (ACCA). Thi oun- terbalanced sequence was used for the 12 sampling epochs of a stsion. The experimenter entered the proper sequence into the computer, rdtorded the subject's initial basal skin resistance, started the computer p iggram that controlled the experiment, and then started playing the audiodg.-sette that presented the subject's random tones. L_ The new element that had been added to this experiment to test & IDS hypothesis was described to the influencer by the experimenter. Irfie in- fluencer was to press a button at what he or she intuitively felt to be the optimal time for beginning the next sampling epoch. The influencer was f94' Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research told that it might be possible to psychically, yet unconsciously, scan the future autonomic activity data stream of the subject and press the button so as to optimally sort the subject's activity into the appropriate sampling epochs-thereby increasing the scoring rate. The addition of this IDS op- tion is, of course, accompanied by psychological factors such as beliefs and expectations that might obscure its true effectiveness. Therefore, a procedure was designed that would allow us to control for such psycholog- ical factors. This procedure required a contrast condition in which the influencer appeared to be initiating sampling epochs by means of his or her button pressing, but in reality was not. This was accomplished in the following manner. In thelcondition that we expected would optimize IDS, ~e influencer's button presses initiated sampling epochs after randomly getermined variable delays. In this condition (the MULTIPLE SEEDS condition), the precise times of occurrence of the button presses were cru- in (Hal in determining the delay periods, because the button presses selected Se clock values that served as the different seeds for the pseudorandom F4gorithm that generated the values of the delays. Thus, button presses Otually could be efficacious in determining sampling scheduling. In the Obritrast condition (the SINGLE SEED condition), all random delay pe- &ds were determined by the first of the influencer's 12 button presses. &e computer's clock value at the time of this first button press seeded the f?eudorandorn algorithm once and only once, and all other button presses ZWetched" their random delays from the already determined outcome of ~at first seeding. w The use of randomly varying delays between button presses and sam- pling epoch initiations accomplished two things: (a) They allowed the in- Mencer and the experimenter to remain blind as to whether a SINGLE SEED or MULTIPLE SEEDS condition was in effect for a given session ge., whether the last I I button presses were really influencing sampling Roch scheduling or not), and (b) their unpredictable nature prevented the r3fluencer from simply observing the subject's electrodermal chart tracing ~d making sensorially and logically informed guesses about the optimal Mnes to press the button and initiate sampling (i.e., to initiate sampling on tge basis of knowledge of the likely time course of the subject's autonomic ,1tivity, based upon observation of the chart tracing). The delays between T&tton press and sampling epoch initiation varied within a 30- to 40- *cond range. o Each of the 12 30-second sampling epochs was signaled by a contin s, low-frequency tone that was audible only to the experimenter and lu influencer. During the six calm-aim (C) epochs, the influencer at t~m ted to psychically decrease the distant subject's sympathetic nervous &_ p rtem activity. Three types of strategies were used to accomplish this 1_ . (a) calming and relaxing oneself and intending for the subject to respond similarly, (b) visualizing the subject in tranquil and relaxing situa- tions and settings, and (c) attending to the polygraph feedback and visual- izing and intending for a flat tracing. During the six activate-aim (A) Intuitive Data Sorting and Bio-PK 295 epochs, the influencer attempted to increase the distant subject's sympa- thetic nervous system activity. Three types of strategies were used to ac- complish this goal: (a) activating oneself and intending for the subject to respond similarly, (b) visualizing the subject in exciting, active situations and settings, and (c) attending to the polygraph feedback and visualizing and intending for a tracing filled with frequent and large pen deflections. The influencer was given the option of whether or not to view the chart tracings. Some influencers found this real-time feedback helpful, whereas others found it distracting and preferred to simply close their eyes and visualize the subject responding appropriately. In order to minimize participant-scheduling difficulties and to minimize variability, a within-subject design was used in which each subject's tisit to the lab involved two sessions, one under the SINGLE SEED condigon and one under the MULTIPLE SEEDS condition. The influencer anc~he experimenter (and, of course, the subject) remained unaware of wtgch conditions were in effect in the two respective sessions until the end olghe second session, at which time a computer printout revealed the condiwn sequence. The order of the two conditions was determined randomly a computer algorithm that was seeded before the first session-based In the timing of a carriage return that occurred while the experimenter Ws entering keyboard information about the subject's name, the date and gae of the session, etc. Each of the two sessions required approximatel,30.15 minutes for completion. The two sessions were separated by a brief blAak of approximately one-minute duration. a- At the conclusion of the second session, the computer generate a printout of the subject's average electrodermal activity during each oQhe 12 sampling epochs of each of the two sessions, along with an indiczaon of the order of the two (SINGLE or MULTIPLE SEEDS) conditions. The experimenter returned to the subject's room, removed the headphones~nd palmar electrodes, then returned with the subject to the experimenPjr's office where the influencer was now waiting. The influencer and the $Bb- . 0 ject discussed their experiences during the sessions while the experimcbter calculated the experimental results, based upon the printout. The Ree participants discussed the outcome of the experiment and then concluzled their visit. cc All procedural details that have not been mentioned explicitly magbe found in Braud and Schlitz (1983). That paper provides information abbut specific equipment, electrodermal sampling, etc. 0 Three a priori statistical analyses were planned: U_ 1. A comparison of the psi scores (calm-aim percentage scores-'Dee below) for the two SEEDS conditions. This analysis would involl t a matched (dependent) t test performed on the 32 pairs of scores. BectEse -tailed test Oias no directional prediction was made in this case, a two < planned, with alpha set at .05. 2. A determination of whether a psi effect occurred in the SINGLE SEED condition. For this analysis, a single-mean t test would be used to 296 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research Intuitive Data Sorting and Bio-PK 297 compare the 32 psi scores with a mean chance expectation (MCE) of 50%. Because a directional (i.e., psi hitting) prediction was made in this case, a one-tailed test was planned, with alpha set at .05. 3. A determination of whether a psi effect occurred in the MULTIPLE SEEDS condition- For this analysis, a single-mean t test would be used to compare the 32 psi scores with an MCE of 50%. Because a directional (i.e., psi hitting) prediction was made in this case, a one-tailed test was planned, with alpha set at .05. ficantly above chance (i.e., in the unexpected missing direction), yielding the following summary statistics: X = 52.06%, SD = 21.59, t[311 - 0. 53, p = .70, one-tailed. In summary, the above three formal, a priori analyses provided strong evidence for a psi effect in the SINGLE SEED condition (p = .019), no evidence for a psi effect in the MULTIPLE SEEDS condition (p = .70), and a psi score superiority of the SINGLE SEED over the MULTIPLE SEEDS condition that very closely approached significance (p = .08, two-tailed). REsuLTs For each session, a total score was calculated for all 12 recording epochs (6 calm-aim and 6 activate-aim). This total score was divided into the sum of the mean electrodermal activity scores for the 6 calm-aim epochs; the process was repeated for the activate7aim epochs. In the ab- sence of a,psi effect, these two ratios [C/(A + Q, A/(A + Q1 should approximate 50%. A psi effect would be evidenced by a set of calm-aim percentage scores that were significantly lower than 50%. rmine An analysis (independent samples t test) was performed to dete whether there was a scoring difference in the runs conducted by the two different experimenters. The scores were found not to differ significantly for the two experimenters. Therefore, scores were pooled across experi- menters for the following analyses. Our first analysis was a determination of whether the 32 subjects' SINGLE-SEED calm-aim percentage scores differed significantly from their MULTIPLE-SEEDS calm-aim percentage scores. Because our prior research has indicated that the percentage scores in these bio-PK experi- ments do not depart significantly from a normal distribution, we tested the SINGLE SEED versus MULTIPLE SEEDS within-subjects contrast by means of a matched t test. The mean calm-aim percentage score was lower (i.e., more in the direction of psi hitting) in the SINGLE SEED (Y = 42.62%, SD = 19.20) than in the MULTIPLE SEEDS (X_ = 52.06%, SD = 21.59) condition. This difference very closely approached statistical significance (t[31] = 1.75, p = .08, two-tailed). Our second analysis tested for the presence of a psi effect in the SINGLE SEED condition. This effect was assessed by means of a single- mean t test in which the 32 calm-aim percentage scores were compared with a mean chance expectation of 50%. The mean calm-aim percentage score was significantly below chance (i.e.. in the expected psi hitting direction), yielding th~ following summary stiatistics: X = 42.62%, SD 19.20, t[3 I] = 2.14, p = .0 19, one-tailed. Our third analysis tested for evidence of a psi effect in the MULTIPLE SEEDS condition. This effect was assessed by means of a single-mean t test in which the 32 calm-aim percentagescores were compared with MCE 50%. The mean calm-aim percentage score was slightly and nonsignim DiscussION In the pilot study that preceded this experiment, no evidence of psi effect was found in the data. We hypothesized that the absence of psinnay Ln - have been contributed by negative moods in all participants (subjectE in- fluencers, and experimenters) due to the extreme length of the e erim mental sessions (often 21/2 hours long). Therefore, we drastically fgort- Rour ened the session lengths, hoping to eliminate this negative factor modifications (described earlier) appear to have been successful begause 00 evidence for psi did emerge in the present experiment. r- The major hypothesis that was being tested in this study, derived8rom . I . an IDS conceptualization of the bio-PK effect, was that greater psi sebring a). would occur in the condition in which there were multiple opportL<ies for intuitive data sorting (i.e., the MULTIPLE SEEDS condition) t9n in the condition in which there was only one such opportunity (i -e the SINGLE SEED condition). The outcome of this experiment was n,4on- sistent with this informational interpretation of the bio-PK effect . Signifi- cant psi scoring occurred in the "older" condition that had been ingffect in all of our prior bio-PK research- namely, a SINGLE SEED con4gion. Significant psi scoring failed to emerge in the new condition that we hym pothesized to favor enhanced intuitive data sorting (i.e., the MULSPLE SEEDS condition). In fact, the superiority of the SINGLE SEED Rndi- tion over the MULTIPLE SEEDS condition closely approached statistical significance. Had the conditions comparison actually reached sQnifi- cance, that finding of superior SINGLE SEED condition perfo ance I would have been quite difficult to explain in IDS terms. As it &, the absence of MULTIPLE SEEDS condition superiority is not con stent t with an informational interpretation, but is more congruent with aicausal or psychokinetic interpretation of the bio-PK effect. The reason for the absence of a significant bio-PK effect in the AUL- TIPLE SEEDS condition is not clear. One might speculate that t e 0 rovi- sion of a second, potentially effective, psychic task in that conditiommay have resulted in a form of "distraction" that could have disrup the influencer's PK performance, mediated perhaps by an increased diffusion or "spreading thin" of the influencer's attention (see Braud, 1978, for an -298 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research elaboration of this "spreading-thin possibility"). If this were indeed the case, it would constitute a remarkable finding, because the potential effec- tiveness of the multiple button presses in the MULTIPLE SEEDS but not in the SINGLE SEED condition is not discernible at a conventional senso- rimotor level (due to the double-blind stratagem by which the effective- ness of button presses was disguised for both influencer and experi- menter). The potential efficacy of button. presses in the MULTIPLE SEEDS but not in the SINGLE SEED condition would have to be dis- cerned at another level, viz., via psi functioning. This issue certainly war- rants additional investigation. Artifact Analyses In all of our previous bio-PK experiments that did not involve an ex- plicit IDS element, the scheduling of the sampling epochs was completely predetermined and entirely beyond the normal sensorimotor control of the influencer. In the IDS bio-PK experiment reported here (as well as in its pilot study), however, the initiation of sampling epochs came under the control of the influencer. It is important, therefore, to rule out the possi- bility that the influencer could have initiated sampling epochs on the basis of knowledge of the time course of the subject's electrodermal activity, derived through observation of the polygraph tracing. Two possibilities of artifactual inflation of scoring rate must be ruled out. The first possibility to be considered is whether the influencer might have observed the chart tracing, waited until an electrodermal response burst was beginning to occur, then quickly pressed the button in order to capture that burst within the next sampling epoch. The possibility of this particular artifact may be ruled out completely because of the relative du- rations of electrodermal response bursts and the button press sampling epoch interval. Response bursts were typically a few seconds in duration and rarely, if ever, as long as 10 seconds. The button press sampling epoch interval, on the other hand, was 30 to 40 seconds in duration. Thus, even if the influencer could have noted the onset of a lengthy response burst and pressed the button immediately, the burst would have been over long before the sampling epoch began. In fact, this was the rationale for selecting the particular button press sampling epoch interval used in this study. The second artifact possibility to be considered is whether the influencer may have taken advantage of feedback -discerned trends in electrodermal activity in order to initiate sampling at optimal times. This would require a consistent relationship between electrodermal activity at time t and elec trodermal activity occurring more than 30 to 40 seconds later. The pres- ence or absence of such a relationship could be determined by means of Intuitive Data Sorting and Bio-PK 299 autocorrelation procedures carried out at increasing lag lengths. Ideally, continuous records would be available that could be divided into a large number of adjacent sampling intervals of short duration. The records could be examined by autocorrelation techniques for lags corresponding to frac- tions of a second to several seconds or minutes, in order to determine the presence and temporal characteristics of possible trends. Such fine- grained, continuous records were not available in these studies. However, electrodermal activity had been sampled, averaged, and printed for the 30-second intertrial or rest periods immediately preceding each of the 12 sampling epochs. The influencer typically pressed the button almost im- mediately after one sampling epoch in order to begin the next interval as quickly as possible-, the latter interval consisted of the 0- to lAecond random delay yielded by the seeded algorithm, a 30-second inteZial or rest period, and the 30-second sampling epoch itself. Thus, in the 2[esent experiment, mean electrodermal activity data were available f(2 what closely approximated 24 successive 30-second periods. An autocor~ation coefficient calculated for Lag 2 would provide a good estimate o pos- sible trend for electrodermal activity at time t to be related to cmtivity shortly after 30 to 40 seconds had elapsed. Such Lag 2 autocorfilation coefficients were calculated for each of the 32 sessions of the S%NGLE SEED condition and for each of the 32 sessions of the MULgIPLE SEEDS condition. The autocorrelations were found to be quitp, small and were not significantly different from zero for either the S&NGLE SEED condition (X_ = 0.059, t[3jj = 1.51, p = .14, two-tailed r the MULTIPLE SEEDS condition (X = 0.027, t1311 = 0.78, p EV.44, two-tailed).2 As an additional check of the trend artifact possibility, we calculad the overall correlation between the 64 Lag 2 autocorrelation coefficients and the 64 bio-PK scores (i.e., the calm-aim percentage scores) of'the~resent experiment. The correlation was nonsignificant and was extremel: ,~ close to zero (r = -.00278); it indicated no relationship between psi gcoring and electrodermal temporal trend at the appropriate time interval5Thus, both artifact possibilities may be effectively ruled out for this expmqment. 4) 0 cc fficients (rk) were calculated according to the formula: 2 Autocorrelation coe 2 n -k 0 E (Z' - z) (Z' z) LL > (Z' - ~)2 0 CL CL Where k = the lag number z, = raw score at time t n = total number of values being correlated ~ = mean score -300 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research A FinalIssue Finally, it could be argued that the SINGLE SEED condition itself may have provided sufficient opportunity for effective intuitive data sorting to occur, particularly if one ascribes a "goal-oriented" (see Schmidt, 1974, pp. 190-191) or "diametric" (see Foster, 1940; Nash, 1986, pp. 202-203) property to the psi process. There is a danger, however, in positing increasingly higher levels at which intuitive data sorting and goal-directedness may operate, and that danger is that both of those no- tions ultimately become untestable. Testability of the intuitive data sorting and goal -orientation concepts requires an operational specification of de- grees of those possibilities; otherwise, the concepts become empirically intractable. The present study, in fact, represented an initial attempt to operationalize and test those concepts. It might be argued that the provision to our influencers in both SEED conditions of freedom to initiate sampling events by button presses may have effectively washed out the difference in IDS potential between the two conditions and rendered them, from an IDS perspective, indistin- guishable. To such a criticism, we respond that (a) despite this freedom factor that is common to both conditions, the two conditions continued to differ in quantity or degree of freedom and, hence, intuitive data sorting possibility, and (b) had such freedom not been provided, a serious psycho- logical difference between the two SEED conditions would have been es- tablished that would have rendered any experimental outcome uninterpret- able. In our tests of the IDS model, we wished the experimenters, the influencers, and the subjects to be unaware of how much control the in- fluencers could exert over the sorting process. Thus it was important to create in the influencers (and experimenter) the illusion of control. This required the use of events that the influencers could initiate by button presses. Influencers pressed a button to initiate events in both the SINGLE SEED and MULTIPLE SEED conditions. If this had not been done, and if events had started automatically for the influencers in the "less-opportu- nity-to-data-sort" condition, the influencers would have known that they had less control of events in that condition, and this would have intro- duced a major psychological confounding factor into the experiment. In the experiment as actually conducted, the influencers felt they had equiva- lent control over events in the two conditions, and the psychological con- found was eliminated. This, of course, added an extra element of data sorting for the influencers throughout the study. However, we were still able to provide different degrees of data-sorting opportunity to the in- fluencers in the various conditions, and we assumed that such degrees should correlate with psi scoring if IDS played a major role in our bio-PK effect. Several levels of IDS were possible for the influencers and experi- menters throughout the experiment, but the influencers had one extra level of IDS potential in the MULTIPLE SEEDS condition, and this extra level did not appear to help scoring. We can think of no alternative method of Intuitive Data Sorting and Bio-PK 301 testing the IDS notion in this manner that would solve this particular problem without violating the necessary blind condition for the influencers and experimenters. A related issue involves our use of a computer keypress to seed a pseu- dorandom algorithm to determine the order of the two SEEDS conditions for an experimental session. Could such a maneuver have provided the experimenter with an important additional opportunity for intuitive data sorting? In response to a possible criticism along these lines, we argue that no alternative was possible. Any choice of order for the two conditions would have been susceptible to IDS, regardless of how or when it was done. In the present experiment, it was necessary for everyone to be blind with respect to the order of conditions. Therefore, it was necessary tAr the order assignment be done by computer, in an unpredictable mannerahis necessitated a randomizing method of the type employed. 0 The possible role of intuitive data sorting in biological psych 0 oklResis and in other manifestations of psi clearly deserves further study. AI~Ma- tive strategies for testing the IDS model are already being explored F4 the Mind Science Foundation, and we hope to develop still other meth(SS in the future. W a) 00 REFERENCES 9 W BRAUD, W. G. (1978). Psi conducive conditions: Explorations and ~? ter- pretations. In B . Shapin & L_ Coly (Eds.), Psi and States ofAwartmess: Proceedings of an International Conference Held in Paris, Franca~Au- gust 24-26, 1977 (pp. 1-41). New York: Parapsychology FoundUon. BRAUD W. [G-1, & SCHLrrZ, M. (1983). Psychokinetic influence on,clec- 00 trodermal activity. Journal of Parapsychology, 47, 95-119, 0 FOSTER, A. A. (1940). Is ESP diametric? Journal of Parapsycholo~, 4, 325-328. MAY, E. C., RADIN, D. I., HUBBARD, G. S., HUMPHREY, B. & UTTs, J. M. (1985). Psi experiments with random number genemtors: An informational model. Proceedings of Presented Papers: Theop8th Annual Convention of the Parapsychological Association, V4 I, 235-266. s ng NASH, C. B. (1986). Parapsychology: The Science of Psiology. field, IL: Charles C Thomas- 0 ROSENTHAL, R. (1978). Combining results of independent studies!~rsy_ chological Bulletin, 855, 185-193. ROSENTHAL, R. (1979). The file drawer problem and tolerance fognull results. Psychological Bulletin, 86, 638-64 1. CL ROSENTHAL, R. (1984). Meta-Analytic Procedures for Social ResQrch. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. SCHLrrz, M., & BRAUD, W. (1985). Reiki-Plus natural healing: An eth- nographic/experimental study. Psi Research, 4, 100-123. 302 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research ScHmiDT, H. (1974). Psychokinesis. In E. D. Mitchell et al. (J. White, Ed.), Psychic Exploration: A Challenge for Science (pp. 179-193). New York: Putnam's. STANFORD, R. G. (1981). Are we shamans or scientists? Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 75, 61- 70. Mind Science Foundation 8301 Broadway, Suite 100 San Antonio, Texas 78209 Age and Stimulus in Past Life Memory Cases: A Study of Published Cases JAmEs G. MATLOCK' ABSTRACT: Ninety-five published past life memory cases in which the previous person was identified were analyzed for the relationship between the subject's age at the time of first speaking of the previous life and the presence of a stimulus to the memories on that occasion. These factors also were analyzed in subseries of 30 Indian and 65 non-Indian cases, and the results of the analyses were compared. The proportion of stimulated to unstimu .lated cases was found to vary significantly between younger and older age groups in the main stines (P Andian subseries (p = . Z79), .00005), the Indian subseries (p = .0014), and the non .0 using chi-square tests. In a two-factor ANOVA with age as the dependent variable, tb&nain effect of type of case (stimulated vs. unstimulated) was significant (p = .0006), R the interaction between type of case and culture (Indian vs. non-Indian) was not significW. Research on reincarnation during the almost 30 years since laflSte- venson (1960a, 1960b) published his seminal paper, "The Evidenep for Survival from Claimed Memories of Former Incarnations," icthis Journal, has been mainly proof-ofiented: that is, it has been largelgon- cerned with the investigation of past life memory cases and with the btab- lishment of reincarnation as the best available interpretation of therrP, Analyses of process-related variables have been reported from tige to time (e.g., see Stevenson, 1970), but process-oriented studies have Rgun to appear only recently. Chadha and Stevenson (1988) identified twifcor- relates of violent death in past life memory cases, and I (Matlock, W8a, 1988b) have related the age of the subject at the time of first speaki3g of the previous life to the strength of the claimed memories. That the subject's age may play a crucial role in past life memorynases is suggested by the sharp contrast between the reports of adults anoxhil- dren. Children's cases may include not only numerous verifiable atate- ments, but also recognitions of persons associated with the previo ife and behavioral and even physical correspondences between the ect and the previous person (Stevenson, 1987). a) Children often begin to speak about previous lives spontane(esly, without apparent stimulus,' and continue to do so for several years fore L_ I would like to thank the several persons-too many to mention by name-w12 gave advice and assistance on this paper in the various stages of its development. 2 In their phenomenology, past life memories seem to resemble what psycholog;& call "involuntary" autobiographical memories (see Neisser, 1982; Rubin, 1986). InvoUntary memories need not be entirely spontaneous, but may be stimulated by a variety of eairon- mental cues, often quite subtle ones (Salaman, 1970). Examples of stimuli (cues) to I&t life memories are given below. The Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research Vol. 83, October 1989