Saturday, January 5, 2008 | Science : Psychiatry and Psychology | print version

Researchers use neuroimaging to study ESP

by PhysOrg

Psychologists at Harvard University have developed a new method to study extrasensory perception that, they argue, can resolve the century-old debate over its existence. According to the authors, their study not only illustrates a new method for studying such phenomena, but also provides the strongest evidence yet obtained against the existence of extrasensory perception, or ESP.

The research was led by Samuel Moulton, a graduate student in the department of psychology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University with Stephen Kosslyn, John Lindsley Professor of Psychology at Harvard and was published in the Jan. 2008 issue of the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. The scientists used brain scanning to test whether individuals have knowledge that cannot be explained through normal perceptual processing.

"If any ESP processes exist, then participants' brains should respond differently to ESP and non-ESP stimuli," explains Moulton. "Instead, results showed that participants' brains responded identically to ESP and non-ESP stimuli, despite reacting strongly to differences in how emotional the stimuli were and showing subtle, stimulus-related effects."

Nearly half of the adults in the United States believe in the existence of ESP, which includes telepathy (direct knowledge of another person's thoughts), clairvoyance (direct knowledge of remote events), and precognition (direct knowledge of the future). People commonly report unexplained knowledge of a loved one's death or a telephone caller's identity, for example, and attribute this knowledge to paranormal mental processing.

The U.S. government lent credence to such claims when it revealed that it had spent millions of dollars recruiting and training psychic spies during the Cold War. Furthermore, research studies have been reported that appear to support the existence of ESP, including an influential series of experiments analyzed by psychologist Daryl Bem of Cornell University. These studies, however, gave little insight into the mechanisms -- normal or paranormal -- that produced the anomalous results. Perhaps more telling, others failed to replicate these results.

To develop a better test of ESP, the authors decided to develop a new method, which directly addressed the presumed source of ESP: namely, the brain. They argue that because the brain enables perception and stores information -- even events people don't consciously perceive or information they can't consciously remember -- it can offer a much more comprehensive test for ESP than self-report or behavior.

"The brain shows a suppressed response to stimuli that a person has seen before, even when those stimuli were presented subliminally, so the person wasn't consciously aware of having seen them; furthermore, it shows an enhanced response to stimuli that a person is expecting," says Moulton. "Because knowledge and expectation bias brain activation, neuroimaging offers us a uniquely powerful test of subtle perceptual or cognitive processes."

To study whether or not ESP exists, Moulton and Kosslyn presented participants with two types of visual stimuli: ESP stimuli and non-ESP stimuli. These two types of stimuli were identical with one exception: ESP stimuli were not only presented visually, but also were presented telepathically, clairvoyantly, and precognitively to participants.

To present stimuli telepathically, the researchers showed the photographs to the participants' identical twin, relative, romantic partner, or friend, who was seated in another room. To present stimuli clairvoyantly, the researchers displayed the photographs on a distant computer screen. And to present stimuli precognitively, the researchers showed participants the photographs again in the future.

Does this conclusively prove that ESP does not exist" "No," says Moulton. "You cannot affirm the null hypothesis. But at the same time, some null results are stronger than others. This is the best evidence to date against the existence of ESP. Perhaps most important, this study offers scientists a new way to study ESP that avoids the pitfalls of past approaches."

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1. Comment #107890 by Solarium Solaris on January 5, 2008 at 2:45 pm

I have ESP. I predict that the comments to follow will not be supportive of such claims.

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2. Comment #107905 by Ludacrispat26 on January 5, 2008 at 2:56 pm

A shame that such talented scientists have to waste their time disproving nonsense.

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3. Comment #107909 by Diacanu on January 5, 2008 at 3:00 pm

I thought the culture's infatuation with all this ESP shit went away after James Randi debunked Uri Geller.

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4. Comment #107913 by ianmkz on January 5, 2008 at 3:01 pm

They should have studied people with ESP!

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5. Comment #107918 by epeeist on January 5, 2008 at 3:07 pm

Comment #107905 by Ludacrispat26

A shame that such talented scientists have to waste their time disproving nonsense.

Only in so far as their experiments failed to refute the null hypothesis. Better experiments are needed which could actually do this.

Personal opinion:

If some kind of low level communication does go on then whether it is telepathy or merely micro-observation then the signal to noise ratio will be extremely low
This being so then the number of people actually capable of this will be very small
The people capable of it will only be able to do it those whom they have a very close relationship
It will only be possible in highly specific circumstances

Having said that, I think the probability of telepathy is minimal and the kind of micro-observation required to simulate telepathy very unlikely.

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6. Comment #107937 by briancoughlanworldcitizen on January 5, 2008 at 3:38 pm

Hi all! I just started this topic on "raiding parties" in the forum. Please have a look and contribute. Thx:-)

http://richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=33112&p=602964#p602964

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7. Comment #107954 by julianstirling on January 5, 2008 at 4:42 pm

epeeist

It is impossible to affirm a null hypothesis. You cannot prove something doesn't exist, it is impossible scientifically.
So their experiment didn't fail, it did exactly what it set out to do.

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8. Comment #107955 by windweaver on January 5, 2008 at 4:48 pm

The first thing I want to say is that I remain sceptical of all things paranormal. But I'd be interested to hear opinions on the following anecdote. A colleague(this person is completely honest in all her dealings and is not into New Age beliefs) where I work is married to an identical twin named Russel. They were in bed asleep one night when Russel suddenly sat upright and excaimed "Steve's(his identical twin) been hurt!" He explained to his wife where he felt pain on his body. It was 2:10 in the morning. About half an hour later they received a call to say that Steve had been injured in an automobile accident. The accident happened at exactly the same time as Russel awoke in bed. It turned out that Steve was injured in the same places as Russel reported feeling pain. I realise that this is just an anecdote but I did some research and found that there are many accounts of identical twins with similar stories.

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9. Comment #107958 by the_ultimate_samurai on January 5, 2008 at 4:58 pm

epeeist, like someone else here mentioned, its impossible to prove something doesnt exist. its a limit of inductive reasoning. but this was evidence AGAINST it, on top of the much evidence against it. but just like you cannot prove there isnt a god, you cannot prove there isnt esp, fairies, magic, and so on, you cant prove a null hypothesis.

as for it being a waste, im not so sure, personaly i have always held that what people think of as esp or paranormal is just a mosaic of normal processes. if asked for instance how someone knew soemone was lying, its hard to say (most of the time) "this gave it away" there are so many small tells that in themselves is not enough evidence, but in total make a better picture. people tend to prefer one explanation, or if there are many tells they should all stand on their own, the interplay is more subtle so they dont notice it.
also, me and my friend joke and say one of us is reading the others mind, but whats actually happening is that after being together so much, when the two of us see the same stimulii, we come to the same answer at around the same time. for instance, me and my friend were watching an anime, forget which, and someone grabbed this guy by the face and caused a big explosion (which as we all know in anime only causes minor burns) and we both said at the same time "shishio!" (a character from rurouni kenshin we had both seen who used a similar attack)
it wasnt that one of us read the others mind, but that both of our minds reacted to the same stimulus in parallel. and this happens quite often.
other times i will observe someone, the way they speak, the way the walk, how they act, about them, and put these things together and many times know things about them, they didnt know. its not telepathy, its not clairvoyance, its just psychoanalysis. when someone says something and another one hears it, in many people, that persons mind is written on their face. their reaction, their thought processes in turn, their response, they all are a kind of tell, to use the poker term.

and this is natural to all humans, its just how perceptive you are. if you spend more time thinking about yourself you wont be able to read a person, and in fact you will open yourself to being read. but i imagine this was the first form of human communication, not what you said, but how you said it, your body posture, your facial experession, vocal inflection, the speed of your response, body language basically. thats all telepathy realy is.

actually what interests me are those monks that can raise and lower their body temperature at will. now i dont know how vredible this is, i have seen them on camera, and i believe IR camera, but has there been any real studies on this?
if its true, it means that humans are capable of controlling their subconscious, that all areas of the brain are available and people can change anything with the proper methodology.

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10. Comment #107970 by tiikki on January 5, 2008 at 5:44 pm

I'm not saying that ESP works, but I have one ESP related story to tell.
Many years ago me and my friends were playing cards. I was the dealer, I throw a card to a friend and I just had to say: "Fiver", on next round when I throw card to him I said: "Damn pair of fivers." It was a pair of fivers...
I'm not saying that this proves anything. It was my own deck and bit worn out so I could have unconsiously remembered the cards from wrong side, or seen a glimps of the card as a reflection from the table or something similar...

But anyway. After that I haven't discounted the minute possibility, that ESP phenomenas might actually be possible...

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11. Comment #107984 by mdowe on January 5, 2008 at 6:55 pm

This is going on at Harvard? Science in America is in a sadder state than I'd ever suspected. You'd think they would at least leave the pseudoscience projects to crackpot institutions ... but I suppose the folks at Liberty would be burning the first false-positive at the stake.

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12. Comment #107993 by Rtambree on January 5, 2008 at 7:37 pm

Ig Nobel Prize candidate?

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13. Comment #107995 by Rational_G on January 5, 2008 at 7:39 pm

ESP = Complete Bullshit

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14. Comment #107999 by Kerry M on January 5, 2008 at 8:01 pm

*I realise that this is just an anecdote but I did some research and found that there are many accounts of identical twins with similar stories.*

As always, the plural of anecdote is not evidence. There are many accounts of Bermuda Triangle disappearances, UFO abductions, and Miraculous Bleeding/Crying Statues. None of these pass the basic skeptic smell test, and neither does the *Mysterious Psychic Twin Connection* meme.

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15. Comment #108023 by Roland_F on January 5, 2008 at 8:42 pm

These stories about telepathy popping up regular. Like someone is 'feeling' the same event like a physically remote but emotionally close person (not only twin but also siblings, lovers etc…) .
Somewhere I read this can be explained with statistics probability: a million times someone has a bad dream, the right leg is itching etc.. and it is not related to any parallel occurrence of another person. The million and first time you have the itching pain in your right leg and at the same time tour brother hit his right leg in an accident : gosh ! A miracle this must be ESP.
No it's not – just from billions of daily events occurring for all the people on the planet a few are occurring parallel, where events which could be with much fantasy considered as similar and therefore related (broken leg in an accident person-1 and itching leg of person-2). It's just about probability like Uri Geller stopping watches, just the mechanical clockwork stops or the battery runs out regular let's say 1% of the time when you have an audience of millions of TV viewers there will be thousand which clock just stopped from alone – not because Uri Geller's magical paranormal abilities.

Some own story: many years ago our family was on a 3 week holiday and the day we come back the cat was behaving nervous and exited like she feel we are coming home this day. Magic ? Not real grandma who looked for the cat and water flowers etc. just changed the daily routine e.g. switch on the fridge, put on bed sheets, clean, …. No magic just the cat realized something is going on.

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16. Comment #108055 by jonjermey on January 5, 2008 at 11:23 pm

Why experiment? As others have said many times, a person with genuine replicable ESP should be able to quickly amass a fortune by gambling. Simply take a hundred people to a casino and see if any of them consistently win at games of chance...

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17. Comment #108079 by Szkeptik on January 6, 2008 at 1:49 am

Come on! If anything like this ESP existed, than evolution would have surely selected for it, since being able to sense a predator outside your cave would be a HUGE advantage. If ESP was real than it would be a competely natural sense for everyone by now.

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18. Comment #108082 by BMMcArdle on January 6, 2008 at 2:06 am

Maybe they'll find out that the phrase "I'm going to hit you so hard your mother's going to feel it!" isn't just something you say at the breakfast table after all.

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19. Comment #108084 by the_ultimate_samurai on January 6, 2008 at 2:28 am

i never argue on anecdotal evidence as a matter of course. the mind is such a subjective thing that attempting to pull any level of objectivity from it is as likely as squeezing blood from a rock. (now sqeeze hard enough and you might bleed, but thats a totaly different thing) when people remember things, esspecialy things like esp or miracles, their mind has already taken hold of this idea, its formatted into their mind, trimmed and fit into place with other similar "experiences" and attempting to get more information from them would be futile, they didnt get more information, they got their answer and stopped there, they didnt think to examine the situation, they didnt take note of other causes, other issues, they only focused on the things which made it unique. and not only wont they be able to remember minor details they physically CANT, they arent there anymore, flushed with the short term memory.
3 people can see the same person and discribe 3 totaly different people, in court often witnesses will point to a defendant only because he matches the real person slightly and because he is in prison garbs. they dont remember what the real person looks like and may not be able to, maybe after some work details can be gotten, but after seeing that person, any hopes of getting a sketch are gone, they now have THAT person in their mind and no one else. because their mind latched on to an answer, a person to fill what was otherwise a hazy void, and whats more someone to have punished. and that person could go to the grave declaring the defendant was the one who did it.
the mind is not a video camera, it does not remember everything in perfect detail, it doesnt even remember things in video, it remembers things in events, in notions, in ideas, it doesnt timestamp, it doesnt even track how long something has been, it takes the flow of events as it remembers them, and using things it understands, basic physical constructs of the world, it makes video when you call it up. (except for me, which i for whatever reason can never call up clear images, perhaps why im a poor artist. i cant make images, only the events)
anecdotal evidence is not evidence at all.

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20. Comment #108085 by IanG on January 6, 2008 at 2:32 am

I guess ESP is just a bit more like the Loch Ness Monster than it is like the Tooth Fairy.

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21. Comment #108090 by Richard Morgan on January 6, 2008 at 2:53 am

The first thing I want to say is that I remain sceptical of all things paranormal. But I'd be interested to hear opinions on the following anecdote.

As soon as I read this article, I predicted we'd get a spate of this kind of thing. Reminds me somewhat of a phenomenon that RD calls, very scathingly, "I'm an atheist,but..."
Also, a bit of pedantry, since many of you here, like me, appreciate it : why would you call "EXTRA-sensory perception" a "sense", since the prefix "extra" expresses a notion of "outside of" or "beyond", rather than "more of" as in "an extra helping of primaeval soup."
Once you have perceived, or sensed something, the means employed are, by definition, no long "extra-sensory".

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22. Comment #108092 by AshtonBlack on January 6, 2008 at 2:57 am

Sorry I've got to say it: Wishful Thinking on the part of anecdote reciters.

The statistical probabilities just don't add up, as someone already pointed out.

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23. Comment #108094 by epeeist on January 6, 2008 at 3:02 am

Comment #107954 by julianstirling

It is impossible to affirm a null hypothesis. You cannot prove something doesn't exist, it is impossible scientifically.
So their experiment didn't fail, it did exactly what it set out to do.

Memo to self - don't post late at night when you have had one two many gins.

Having said that - the one thing I do reject is the attempted use of induction in science, I thought this had disappeared at least as long ago as the 1930's.

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24. Comment #108106 by windweaver on January 6, 2008 at 3:29 am

As soon as I read this article, I predicted we'd get a spate of this kind of thing. Reminds me somewhat of a phenomenon that RD calls, very scathingly, "I'm an atheist,but..."

Richard M, all I was doing was contributing to the comment thread with an interesting anecdote. It doesn't mean I'm partial to putatively paranormal phenomena (I'm a member of Australian Skeptics as it happens).I'm particularly interested in rational/scientific explanations for claimed ESP etc and this website (a clear thinking oasis) is the perfect place to discuss such claims. BTW, I share RDs disdain for "atheist buttery"

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25. Comment #108125 by Corylus on January 6, 2008 at 4:35 am

"If any ESP processes exist, then participants' brains should respond differently to ESP and non-ESP stimuli,"

Why's that then? Am I alone in smelling the reification fallacy here?

If so is this experiment:-

a) Making it;
b) A response against others making it; or
c) Researchers not addressing this issue and/or and not clearly stating their definitions?

I admit I am unsure. (I have looked at the PhysOrg site and there are no further details than given here).

---

For info: the series of Edge articles on 'Changing your Mind' features one by Susan Blackmore (ex parapsychologist). It's a very interesting read:

http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_13.html#blackmore

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26. Comment #108197 by rokort on January 6, 2008 at 8:32 am

Comment #107909

I thought the culture's infatuation with all this ESP shit went away after James Randi debunked Uri Geller.

Well, Diacanu, I'm not sure where you live, but here in Holland some pretty popular commercial TV-station will start a program late January in which Uri Geller will search amongst 10 candidates for the new: Uri Geller!

Next to this we have here every day 'Astro TV', where someone situated between images of the universe and Buddha (...) takes questions from people calling in. Like: "My husband is dying of cancer, how will 2008 be?", and then the looney in charge of answering puts down some Tarot cards to 'assist' her in the answer wich is that "it will all work out fine". And the caller pays for this 'consult'....

Plus don't forget that *barf* authentic psychic-intuitive *barf* Char Margolis. Every darn week on TV, where she torments my screen with her verbal diarrea. She's very popular. That's why she has the prime-time slots on TV and Darren Brown only the Saturday morning ones on that same station.

So, I'm not sure the interest for things as ESP is fading. Still a lot of work to do for skeptics. Way too many people still out there that go for 'somethingism'.

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27. Comment #108350 by robotaholic on January 6, 2008 at 2:26 pm

guess what I'm going to type... you were wrong -esp doesn't work...next

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28. Comment #108392 by A on January 6, 2008 at 5:41 pm

Pointless.

Psychologists at Harvard University will achieve nothing.

If you want to eradicate such supernatural bullshit - don't let the 'enemy' do some tests and then proclaim victory, give money, enough money, to the adherents to build a psychic healing hospital or ESP detective agency or divination based oil exploration enterprise - and arrange brightly lit media coverage.

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29. Comment #108440 by Atheist_from_Hell on January 6, 2008 at 10:20 pm

Well, I am definitely an a-ESPist, no "buts" about it.

RE: Comment #9 (107955) by windweaver

I'm a twin, and I've never had any experiences like that.

RE: Comment #18 (108055) by jonjermey

I have often thought that if someone actually had psychic abilities he could make a lot more than James Randi's $1,000,000 by keeping his psychic abilities secret.

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30. Comment #108503 by stephenray on January 7, 2008 at 4:59 am

Oh dear.

A waste of research dollars because, as any fule kno, the brain is not the seat of ESP.

ESP is a broad-spectrum response of the entire body's cell network (a bit like Hubbards' engrams) and, in any event, being extra-sensory is not detectable with devices that are designed to measure electrochemical phenomena in the brain.

:o|

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31. Comment #108512 by hungarianelephant on January 7, 2008 at 5:29 am

rokort - Here in Ireland we have phone-in psychics on the radio. You can't even see the cards. It's terrific entertainment. The way it works is that every fourth caller has to be warned to be wary of something suitably non-specific. Otherwise people might get suspicious.

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32. Comment #108518 by rod-the-farmer on January 7, 2008 at 5:41 am

....the researchers showed participants the photographs again in the future.

Did anyone else find this particularly fascinating ? Is it just tortuous grammar, or did the experimenters manage something really quite new.

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33. Comment #108897 by Don_Quix on January 7, 2008 at 10:41 pm

I find this article interesting, and I'm somewhat surprised by some of the reactions here. I don't really think it's a "waste of time" to conduct such experiments. At the very least it helps to contribute to the effort of discrediting pseudoscientific ideas like ESP for the unwashed masses. That seems like a worthy endeavor to me ;)

And there is always the extremely unlikely possibility that through such experiments they may stumble across and be able to scientifically explain some new and as-yet unknown natural phenomena that people perceive or describe as ESP (again very unlikely, but possible).

Also, it IS very, very simple to prove a negative:

2 + 2 IS NOT EQUAL TO 5.

There, I proved it. Eat that D'Souza!

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34. Comment #108900 by briancoughlanworldcitizen on January 7, 2008 at 11:25 pm

We interrupt this program to bring you breaking news ...

A few of us kicked off a little experiment and it has got quite interesting.

http://richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=33112&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

In particular the site :http://atheismsucks.blogspot.com/

Is currently a hot bed of activity. Why not chime in and try your hand with some quite articulate, often nasty and very confident theists? Enjoy, but try and play nice:-)

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