MEMORY AND ESP

1. MEMORY AND ESP An Overview of Research in Light of the First Sight Model Jim Carpenter

2. Provide some theoretical integration for experimental parapsychology Place psi in the context of normal psychological processes Account for the episodic, “elusive” quality of psi phenomena Organize and guide research in light of a comprehensive model of psi functioning The First Sight model represents an attempt to

3. Psi is said to be First Sight, because Psi apprehensions are presumed to begin the processes of the formation of all experience

4. In two recent publications, Carpenter has introduced the First Sight model of psi functioning • The model was applied to many lines of parapsychogical research, particularly psi and creativity, memory and subliminal perception • The current paper further elaborates the model’s understanding of ESP and memory

5. RESEARCH ON MEMORY AND ESP • Perhaps 45 experiments on the general problem • Relatively hot topic for a small field for a while (1967 to 1990) • Many significant results, but many contradictions, at least superficially • Several different operations used for both memory and ESP, and several different kinds of questions were being asked • Interest probably declined because results seemed confusing, and because forced-choice ESP testing became unfashionable

6. Research began with a serendipitous observation • Feather (1967) preceded an ESP test with a memory test, hoping to induce frustration and lower ESP scores • Scores were not lowered, but she noticed a positive correlation between scores on ESP and memory • She confirmed this relationship with 3 other series

7. WHY MEMORY AND FIRST SIGHT MODEL? • First Sight Model • Hypothesizes that ESP mingles with other preconscious processes in shaping experience • Memory and ESP should show similar patterns of functioning • Remembered material and extrasensory material should be drawn upon conjointly in anticipating and shaping experience

8. DIFFERENT QUESTIONS THAT CAN BE ASKED ABOUT MEMORY AND ESP • Are they similar processes? If so they should be positively correlated when tested in a single situation, and should follow similar internal patterns of functioning. • Can ESP “stimuli” influence memory retrieval? (Adding ESP to a memory task) • Does remembered information influence the attempt to retrieve ESP information? (Adding memory to an ESP task)

9. SKETCH OF THE FIRST SIGHT MODEL • We are preconsciously engaged with reality beyond our physical boundaries • All such distal engagements are termed “psi” • The engagements are preconscious and anticipatory • Like other preconscious processes, psi is purposeful and personal

10. FUNCTION OF PSI • Psi acts constantly • Psi helps us efficiently anticipate and understand our developing experience • Psi helps us avoid undesirable circumstances and find desirable ones • Psi is not a degraded form of consciousness – it is an aspect of the preconscious process that leads to consciousness

11. GLIMPSING PSI • Psi apprehensions (like subliminal apprehensions) arouse nexi of meaning and feeling that anticipate developing experience • If the process of development of an experience is interrupted, these activated networks can be seen to be inadvertently expressed in fantasies, associations, spontaneous behaviors, moods, dreams, etc.

12. PRECONSCIOUS COMMINGLING OF APPREHENSIONS • The First Sight model assumes that the mind democratically and unconsciously draws upon all available sources of information in arriving at an orientation to developing experience • Psi apprehensions are expected to be drawn upon, along with memories, subliminal stimuli, and elements of imagination

13. PSI IS BIMODAL • In regard to any potential experience, one’s stance may be toward the thing or away from it (approach or avoid) • A stance toward the thing will make it contribute additively to experience • A stance away-from will lead to a subtractive contribution to experience (the meaning will be decisively avoided)

14. ASSIMILATION AND CONTRAST • Another term for additive participation is “assimilation” • Subtractive participation is termed “contrast” • Assimilation and contrast are well studied in general psychology in the formation of judgments and percepts • The same patterns should often apply whether the elements of context are subliminal, remembered, or extrasensory,

15. Extrasensory assimilation is psi-hitting • Extrasensory contrast is psi-missing

16. ASSIMILATION AND CONTRAST REFER TO HOW THE MIND DEALS WITH INCIDENTAL (CONTEXTUAL) ELEMENTS IN FORMING EXPERIENCE (IN GESTALT, THIS IS CALLED FIGURE/GROUND RELATIONS) • Elements seen as more similar to the experience or the intentions guiding it are more likely to assimilated • Elements sensed to be dissimilar, are dis-assimilated (rendered into contrast) • The more well-defined an experience is, the more likely that contextual elements will not be assimilated.

17. IN REGARD TO ANY POTENTIAL EXPERIENCE, THESE MODES TEND TO SWITCHAT SOME RATE, AT LEAST WITH ESP • The more slowly they switch, the more behavior is likely to express some reference to the potential experience that is psi-apprehended • Conversely, rapid switching will make it very unlikely that any discernable reference will be made to the experience • In everyday life, this means we will be more-or-less likely to veer toward or away from something by virtue of psi apprehensions • In an ESP test, this means that scoring deviations will be relatively large or small

18. BACK TO MEMORY AND ESP: ARE THEY SIMILAR PROCESSES? • If so, they should be positively correlated with participants when tested in the same situation • They should show similar internal patterns of functioning when tested in the same situation

19. YES Feather (1967) Kanthamani & Rao (1974) Rao (1978) NO Rao, Morrison & Davis (1977) Kreiman (1978) Parker (1976) Weiner & Haight (1980) ARE MEMORY AND ESP POSITIVELY CORRELATED?

20. H. J. IRWIN TO THE RESCUE: DISTINGUISING PRIMARY AND SECONDARY MEMORY • Some studies tested primary (short-term, or working) memory and tended to find negative relationship • Some tested secondary (long-term) memory and tended to find positive relationship • Some made room for either strategy and produced mixed results

21. IT IS USEFUL TO MAKE EVEN FINER DISTINCTIONS AMONG MEMORY PROCESSES • Primary (working) memory (trying to remember a name I just heard) • Secondary (long-term) memory (remembering the name of a friend) • Overlearned secondary memory (recalling my own name) • Implicit memory (trying to guess the name someone said when I wasn’t paying attention)

22. FIRST SIGHT MODEL PREDICTS: • Working memory: Negative relationship with ESP since ongoing cognitive effort renders other contextual information irrelevant • Secondary memory: Positive relationship with ESP since good retrieval requires an open scanning of associations and other inadvertent experiences, as does ESP retrieval

23. MORE PREDICTIONS • Overlearned secondary memory: negative relationship with ESP since highly automatic response permits no inner searching of sort ESP requires, and renders other context into contrast • Implicit memory: Positive relationship with ESP since successful retrieval requires same sort of open-minded guessing/scanning that facilitates access to ESP apprehensions

24. THE RELATIONSHIPS REPORTED DO TEND TO FALL OUT THIS WAY • As Irwin noted, studies testing long-term memory with an interpolated task, like the original Feather study, do tend to show a positive correlation, and those testing short-term memory without an interpolated task tend to show a negative correlation • A negative correlation implies that one doing well at the memory task is doing below-chance on the ESP task and vice versa

25. Some reports (Kreiman, 1978; Weiner & Haight, 1980)subsequent to Irwin’s review tended to test working memory and to report negative relationships • Kanthamani & Rao (1974, 1975) in several series found a positive relationship in-the-moment between secondary memory and ESP • One study examining implicit memory and ESP (Stanford, 1970) found a positive relationship

26. ANOTHER DISTINCTION FOR SOME STUDIES TESTING SECONDARY MEMORY • Rammohan (1990) examined one paradigm that had been studied several times (ESP “stimuli” included in an academic examination) • She noticed that when the ESP aspect of the situation was explicit, the relationship tended to be positive. When that was not revealed, the relationship was negative. • She carried out 3 studies that confirmed this pattern

27. THIS “RAMMOHAN EFFECT” WOULD BE PREDICTED BY FIRST SIGHT • Making the ESP aspect explicit acts as a prime (or cue) making it more likely that potentially relevant information of an ESP sort would be assimilated (the student is put on notice that extrasensory information matters) • If that aspect is not present, particularly in the context of anxiety about academic performance, irrelevant elements of context (like ESP) should be subject to contrast

28. DO MEMORY AND ESP SHOW SIMILAR INTERNAL PROCESSES? • Some studies examining the implicit use of associates in misses of both types (memory and ESP) suggests that they do – when secondary memory is being tested • There is a potential artifact in some of the studies, but if the effect is reliable, it is consistent with the First Sight model • Persons who search inwardly for associates to an uncertain memory item should be inadvertently calling up ESP information also, and use the same strategy in ESP as such. Persons who don’t tend to do such searching in the one case will not tend to do it in the other.

29. DOES ESP EFFECT MEMORY RETRIEVAL? • First Sight predicts that ESP information should commingle with secondary memory • Johnson (1977) found an effect of ESP targets added into an academic exam • Some confirmations reported by Braud (1975), Schechter (1997) and Stanford (1970) • Kreiman (1978) reported a similar effect in a non-academic memory test • Some follow-ups replicated this and some didn’t. Explicit priming seemed important in success.

30. ONE IMPLICATION OF KREIMAN (1970) IS IMPORTANT FOR FIRST SIGHT MODEL • ESP intrudes into memory response more when the memory is relatively uncertain (associations are weaker) • When something is very securely learned, it comes quickly to mind and incidental elements of context are excluded • This effect of association strength was confirmed by Lieberman (1976)

31. SO: • Psi effects may indeed be seen in memory tasks, especially if: • Secondary memory is being tested • Associations are relatively weak, requiring inner searching • The ESP aspect of the situation is primed by being explicit

32. DOES MEMORY ENTER INTO ESP TESTS? • Some degree of familiarity is probably necessary for a potential experience to function as an ESP target at all (as Roll, 1966, proposed) • More familiar material has been found to evoke higher ESP scores in several studies

33. BUT • However, if material is over-learned, ESP responses should be highly determined by non-extrasensory habits, and scores (in terms of ESP targets) should be negative and/or show tight variance. • Several studies have shown these expected patterns

34. SO • Memory and ESP, as preconscious processes, are similar and do show similar patterns of functioning • ESP effects may intrude into the responses of memory testing • Memory is a factor that influences success in ESP tests • The First Sight model sheds some light on these things