The Psychophysical Research Laboratories (PRL)
and PSI Ganzfeld Studies
Angela Thompson Smith
The Ganzfeld studies, although not technically Remote Viewing, are part of the early history of remote perception research and deserve a place in the archives. PRL closed down in 1988. Located in Princeton, New Jersey, the Psychophysical Research Laboratory (PRL) was directed by parapsychologist Charles Honorton. PRL (1986), in its promotional literature, described itself as:
"An independent, nonprofit, tax-exempt research organization which supports a program of scientific study and experimentation directed towards increasing basic knowledge and understanding of the human mind and its relationship with the physical world.
PRL does experimental studies of presently unidentified means of communication between human beings and their environment. Examples of such communication are known as "psi phenomena, and include extrasensory perception (ESP) and psychokinesis (PK). PRL studies range from subliminal sensory perception to telepathic transmission of pictures between sensorially isolated sender-receiver teams; from biofeedback control of physiological states to psychokinetic effects on electronic processes."
PRL was funded by the McDonnell Foundation. John McDonnell, one of the founders of the aerospace firm of McDonnell-Douglas, had a long-time interest in metaphysics and established a fund to carry out anomalies research. PRL utilized the Ganzfeld technique in their research:
The Ganzfeld or "whole field" creates a setting of mild sensory deprivation which allows the subject to move into the inner world of the mind. This is achieved by isolating the subject, seated in a comfortable chair, in a darkened room, listening to "white noise" through ear-phones. Halved ping-pong balls taped over the subject's eyes are flooded with red light to create a homogenous visual field. During the Ganzfeld, Honorton and his colleagues had subjects, or "participants" as PRL preferred to call them, try to "perceive" or view a video target that was being played in another isolated room, and being watched by a "sender". The "perceiver" would talk out loud during the session, commenting on the visual images that flashed through their mind, and then would rate either four still pictures or four moving videos, to judge which one they felt the "sender" was watching during the session. The process was completely automated, which excluded a lot of the judging problems encountered in the early days of psi research.
Most of the participants, who visited PRL, were "first-timers", people who had never taken part in parapsychology experiments. Some of PRL's previous research had shown that individuals who have prior meditation experience, who had previous psi experiences, and fell into the ENFP (extraverted, intuitive, feeling, and perceiving) MBTI personality rating, were more likely to do well in psi experiments, such as the Ganzfeld. Honorton has been acclaimed as the best in his field and his Ganzfeld research has been used as a benchmark for further studies by the Edinburgh parapsychologists, and by social psychologist Daryl Bem.
In the early 1990s, Daryl Bem, a psychologist at Cornell University, who is also a skeptic and magician, was invited to evaluate the Ganzfeld psi research work at the Psychophysical Research Laboratories (PRL). Bem admits that he was initially skeptical of the claims, made by Honorton and others, that the Ganzfeld was psi conducive. However, through participating in the research and installing appropriate experimental controls, Bem and Honorton were able to report statistically significant results. Bem and Honorton published their findings in a peer-reviewed journal, the Psychological Bulletin, a first for such controversial results. Sadly, Honorton, who was completing studies at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, died in 1992, before the paper was published. Chuck's early death created a great loss within the parapsychological community.
According to Bem and Honorton (1994) the term psi denotes anomalous processes of information or energy transfer that are currently unexplained in terms of known physical or biological mechanisms. However, they take care to add that the term neither implies that such anomalous phenomena (psi) are paranormal, nor does it connote anything about their underlying mechanisms. Bem and Honorton's papers and Hyman's response were lead articles in the Psychological Bulletin -- an indication of the new respect being given to research in this field.
Honorton's research has been subjected to ongoing criticism from the scientific and skeptical community. During the mid 1980's psychologist and skeptic Ray Hyman and Honorton were embroiled in a lengthy paper debate regarding the Ganzfeld work. Bem and Honorton's recent paper has also come under attack but the skeptics agree that the statistics are impressive and that the results defy explanation within the conventional paradigm. Bem remains convinced of the results and hopes that their findings prompts others to try replicating the effects. Hyman has suggested that all these results should then be pooled into one large study, a met-analysis, which may reveal further information about the phenomenon.
A survey of 1,100 U.S. college professors by Wagner and Monnet (1979) found that 55% of natural scientists, 66% of social scientists, and 77% of academics in the arts, humanities, and education believed that extrasensory perception (ESP) is either an established fact or a likely possibility. Only 2% of the respondents declared that ESP was an impossibility. However, only 34% of the psychologists who were surveyed rated the existence of ESP as a possibility. According to Bem and Honorton (1994) this might be because psychologists are probably more skeptical for several reasons. However, Bem and Honorton believed that results from one particular experimental method, the Ganzfeld, were sufficient to warrant bringing this body of psi data to the attention of the wider psychological community. In their joint paper Bem and Honorton described 11 new Ganzfeld studies which were carried out after extensive critiques by psychologist Ray Hyman (1994).
The major criticisms leveled at the Ganzfeld research were related to the randomization process used in the protocols, inconsistencies within the combined Ganzfeld databases provided by Bem and Honorton, and that the results showed a unique pattern that might reflect the existence of a systematic artifact.
However, Hyman acknowledged that the new results were superior to previous parapsychological experiments. Hyman also acknowledged that the method consistently produced positive hit rates, whose combined effect was highly significant. However, he continued to critique the Ganzfeld data and felt that independent replications were the only way that psi could be demonstrated. These replications are now underway at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and at the Institute for Parapsychology in Durham, NC. In addition, Hyman's methodological critiques were successfully countered by Bem (1994). Firstly, he admitted that although the early Ganzfeld results were heterogeneous, no claim had been made that they were consistent or inconsistent with later databases. The only claim made was that a similar hit rate was achieved by both the earlier and later databases. The randomization criticisms were countered by Bem who provided new statistical analyses of the data.
REFERENCES
- Bem, D.J. (1994). "Anomaly or artifact? Comments on Bem and Honorton": Response to Hyman. Psychological Bulletin, 115, 1, 25-27.
- Bem, D.J. & Honorton, C. (1994). Does psi exist? Replicable evidence for an anomalous process of information transfer. Psychological Bulletin, 111, 1, 4-18.
- Honorton, C. (1974). State of awareness factors in psi activation, Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 68, 243-256.
- Honorton, C., Barker, P., Varvoglis, M.P., Berger, R.E., & Schechter, E.I. (1985). First timers: An exploration of factors affecting psi Ganzfeld performance. Presented paper at the 28th Annual Convention of the Parapsychological Association.
- Hyman, R. (1994). Anomaly or artifact? Comments on Bem and Honorton. Psychological Bulletin, 115, 1, 19-24.
- Wagner, M. W., & Monnet, M. (1979). Attitudes of college professors towards extrasensory perception. Zetetic Scholar, 5, 7-17.