Parapsychology defined. The Parapsychological Association (1989) defines “parapsychology” in The Journal of Humanistic Psychology as the discipline that employs observation and experimentation under controlled conditions to study “apparent anomalies of behavior and experience that exist apart from currently known explanatory mechanisms that account for organism-environment and organism-organism information and influence flow” (pp. 394-395).
Psi defined. Psi refers to two basic types of personality action considered under the broad heading of psychic or paranormal abilities. The first form of psi is classically known as extrasensory perception (ESP) (the “sixth” intuitional sense or the more neutral term, “anomalous cognition”), which is “the ability to acquire information that is shielded from the senses” (Rao, 2001, p. 3). The second form of psi is called psychokinesis (PK) (action-at-a-distance or the more neutral term “anomalous perturbation”), which is “the ability to influence external systems that are outside the sphere of one’s motor activity” (Rao, 2001, p. 3). The term psi is used as a common name for both ESP and PK because most parapsycholgists believe they operate similarly and are two aspects of the same underlying ability.
Four types of ESP distinguished. ESP or the ability to obtain knowledge without the use of the five physical senses is further differentiated into four types based on the apparent source of the information: telepathy (perception of another’s thoughts), a term coined in 1889 by Frederick W. H. Myers, a co-founder of the Society for Psychical Research, clairvoyance (perception through space of remote objects and events) known today as “remote viewing,” precognition (perception through time of future events) also called “premonition”, and retrocognition (perception through time of past events).
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Outcome response formats. Parapsychology ESP experiments usually make use of two types of structured response formats: forced-choice and free-response. In forced-choice experiments, there are a small number of known choices from which the subject must choose and the subject is aware of the possible target item alternatives (e.g., the five symbols in Zener cards, or the four lights in an automatic display). In free-response formats viewers are simply asked to describe the target and the target pool is unknown to the subject. Although free-response formats elicit rich and more meaningful responses, forced-choice experiments are easier to evaluate statistically because specific probabilities can be assigned to the results (i.e., a “correct” response is well-defined in advance and thus there is a standard for probabilistic comparisons). The response format can make a difference in the results of an experiment. The use of force-choice formats, for example, “have been traditionally less successful than free-response experiments” in remote-viewing studies (Utts, 2001, p. 112).
Two types of PK distinguished. Psychokinesis is commonly referred to as “mind over matter” and refers to instances where thought or mental intention is hypothesized to affect or influence physical processes but without usual physical contact or the mediation of known physical energy. Two kinds of psychokinetic phenomena (PK) are generally distinguished: micro-PK (small scale) and macro-PK (large scale) phenomena.
Micro-PK and macro-PK. Micro-PK or small-scale psychokinesis refers to PK effects that are too subtle, too small, or too fast to observe with the naked eye how the mind actually affects a physical system (e.g., tossed dice, flipped coins, random even generators, quantum mechanical systems). Micro-PK are the sorts of PK phenomena that are deliberately produced in experimental settings under controlled conditions, and require statistical analysis in order to demonstrate their occurrence. Macro-PK or large scale psychokinesis refers to PK effects that are slow enough that they can be readily observed with one’s own eyes as it happens (e.g., materialization and de-materialization of physical objects, poltergeist activity, rappings and bangings, levitation and movement of tables, metal bending, imprinting a mental image on photographic film). Macro-PK are the sorts of PK phenomena that are produced spontaneously, either sporadically or recurrently, outside the laboratory in ordinary life settings or situations, and do not require statistical analysis to demonstrate their occurrence. |
