MEMORY AND ESP

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MEMORY AND ESP
An Overview of Research in Light of the First
Sight Model Jim Carpenter
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The First Sight model represents an attempt to

• 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

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Psi is said to be First Sight, because Psi
apprehensions are presumed to begin the processes
of the formation of all experience
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• 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 models
  understanding of ESP and memory

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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

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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

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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

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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)

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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PSI IS BIMODAL

• In regard to any potential experience, ones
  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)

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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,

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

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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.

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IN REGARD TO ANY POTENTIAL EXPERIENCE, THESE
MODES TEND TO SWITCH AT 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

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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

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ARE MEMORY AND ESP POSITIVELY CORRELATED?

• NO
• Rao, Morrison Davis (1977)
• Kreiman (1978)
• Parker (1976)
• Weiner Haight (1980)

• YES
• Feather (1967)
• Kanthamani Rao (1974)
• Rao (1978)

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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

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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 wasnt paying attention)

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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

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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

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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

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• Some reports (Kreiman, 1978 Weiner Haight,
  1980)subsequent to Irwins 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

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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

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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

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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 dont tend
  to do such searching in the one case will not
  tend to do it in the other.

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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 didnt.
  Explicit priming seemed important in success.

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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)

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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

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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

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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

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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