The Psychophysiology of Paranormal Experiences

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The Psychophysiology of Paranormal Experiences

• Dr. James Cruickshank
• Parapsychology
• Week 10

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Demographics of psi how common is it?

• Thru history people have reported having P
  experiences
• Gallup poll majority of US citizens believe in P
  exp (Gallup Newport, 1991)
• Form of P beliefs strongly infl by culture,
  media, peer groups (Sparks et al., 1997)
• Older age, employed, poor education, Creative,
  Divorced/seperated
• Ganzfeld debate 31 Hyman (1985), Honorton 43
  (1985) gt Guidelines (Honorton hyman, 1988)
• 11 experiments meta-analysis 33 hit rate

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Introduction

• by definition, ESP is extra-sensory, the brain at
  some point in a chain of events processes it.
• If events are pseudo-psi effects, the process of
  misperception may be realised via the brain.
• This lecture takes position that psi exists
• will talk about how often psi remains unavailable
  to conscious awareness BUT registers
  physiologically in the person.
• Philosophy and the brain
• The problem of consciousness, vision and psi
• Psi is perception-like the mind as a filter
• Where is it? Hemispherical vs. structural
  differences
• Thinner boundaries and can brains really
  communicate?

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The Brain and the mind The binding problem

• Whats the Mind-Body Problem?
• Because there is a focus on the brain, does not
  mean the mind cannot exist as a separate entity
• When someone takes part in a psi exp, and we see
  activity in certain area of the brain or that the
  brain is functioning in a certain way/state of
  consciousness corr psi
• Same with any C experience assume located in
  brain because corr with neuro data
• How does this interaction take place? Source of
  Christopher Kochs binding problem (Crick Koch,
  2003).
• Depends on which Phil stance you take on the MBP

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Whats the mind-body problem?

• Dates back to Plato
• Four incompatible propositions
• Plato dualist (soul separate from body)
• Aristotle Materialist (body and soul of same
  underlying substance)
• Dualism been driving force behind MBP
• what is it that makes it possible for two
  contraries to interact as our minds seem to with
  our brains?

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The MBP and parapsychology

• Don et al., (1997) suggest that identity theory
  does not preclude psi
• Suggest that interactionist dualism may be a
  better explanation
• Mental and Material classed as two diff kinds of
  substance
• Each can have a causal effect on the other
• Consciousness understood to exist separate from
  but reducible to matter
• Doesnt really fix the problem
• Can see correlates of conc and the brain

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Consciousness, vision and psi

• David Chalmers (1995) how does the brain produce
  consciousness? the hard problem
• the brain codes for different aspects of a scene
  someone running past (churchland-Smith, 1988)
• Marr (1982) Outlined 3 stages of representation
  in visual perception the primal sketch, the 2.5
  D sketch and the 3D model representation.
• Many processes are unconscious in normal
  perception. It is only at the later stages that
  consciousness arises. It is still not fully
  understood how this happens.
• How is this like psi? first consider what we
  think psi is

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What is psi?

• Psi is perception-like
• Outside of attentional focus, i.e. not conscious
• A weak signal
• -Similar to subliminal perception
• Psi and SP similar processes (Beloff, 1973
  Roney-Dougal, 1986)
• Both associated with R Hem processes
• Similar phys responses (GSR and EEG)
• Data are memories and the mind filters through
  them

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The mind as a filter

• The idea of an attention filter in the mind,
  which sifts through incoming information, is not
  a new one (Roney-Dougal, 1986).
• The idea is that some people have more access to
  the contents of the unconscious us pre-awareness
  states than others (Hartmann et al., 1998).
• Thalbourne (1998) proposed the idea of
  transliminality a similar idea, but that of the
  ease in information crossing boundaries in the
  mind.
• Thinner boundaries in the thresholds of the
  mind are suggested to render one more likely to
  experience anomalous phenomena
• Have been associated with more SP info, more
  memory for dreams, lucid states.

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• Thin boundaries
• Transliminality
• Hypnagogia
• Dreaming
• Meditation

Consciousness

• Thick boundaries
• Awake alert

Boundaries in the mind and brain
PSI?
Unconsciousness
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• Thin boundaries relative connectedness of
  psychological processes, reflected in a thinking
  style of Shades of Grey.
• Thick boundaries refer to a relative
  separateness of psychological processes,
  reflected in a thinking style of Black and
  White
• constructs reflect structural boundaries
  representational boundaries, and boundaries in
  how one thinks or processes information
• If on has thinner boundaries then they may have
  more access to lower (pre-conscious) processes
  and possibly PSI.

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Psi may be associated with older parts of the
brain

• Demasio (1995) Conc depends on evolution of old
  regions of brain_ not dependant on neocortex
• Damage to neocortex does not affect central
  resource of consc
• Tart (1979) much science suggest C is equated
  with brain functioning. Wrong, qualia may be an
  epi-phenomenon
• Crick Koch (2003) the greatest problem what
  are qualia?
• Tart- emergent interactionism C is emergent
  product of two systems the brain and the mind.
  Psi might be the mechanism of interaction
• Psi may not reach C but might have a real
  evolutionary purpose a communication function
  between mind and brain

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Evidence

• It seems psi associated with increase in
  cortical-sub-cortical, more availability of
  sub-cortical processes to the cortex (back to
  thinness)
• Evidence for this idea derives from suggestion
  that extraverts would do better at a psi task
  than introverts.
• Gurney Myers Podomore (1986)
• psi pexperiences occur in the borderland states
  of consciousness
• hypnagogic state of consciousness and is
  associated with increased functioning or
  awareness of Limbic and Brainstem process
  (Banich, 2004).
• suggested by several authors that the cortex
  functions as an effective attentional filter,
  preventing the passing of psi information from
  entering awareness.
• When people relaxed better at psi exp. Anxiety
  inhibits psi

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Can we locate psi in the brain? Hemispherical
differences

• Braud (1975) psi better where RH dominates
• LH logical, formal vs sensory, verbal,
  mathematical, conscious, linguistic
• RH diffuse attending, paralogical, sensory,
  spatial, artistic, intuitive
• Fenwick (2001) RH contributes to mystical exp
  ineffability, feeling of unity, alterations in
  perception of time
• RH related to above chance perf on ESP tasks,
  while LH implicated in psi missing
• More recently disputed by Alexander Broughton
  (1999). No diffs in people with preference for R
  or LH processing

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Can we locate psi in the brain? Structural
differences

• Receptive psi seen as composed of LTMs and often
  multimodal
• Temporal lobes, the bio substrate for memory,
  seems most likely receptor for psi (Roll, 1996)
• In particular, focus on hippocampus (structure),
  amygdala (meaning)
• Temporal lobes
• During remote viewing trials, Cheryl Alexander
  (2000) found BSJ higher peak alpha in LF region
  and RT region during trials vs controls
• Overall increased activation of RH
• Corresponds with data found in another
  participant (McDonough et al., 20001997) who was
  also found to have high temp lobe activity

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The hippocampus and the parahippocampal cortex

• The H compared to memory index because of its
  intrinsic structure as well as way it connects to
  cortex
• Itesm of info associated with cortical space
  abbreviated codes for access contained within H
• The PH is the primary link between the H and the
  amygdala
• These structures considered multimodal affected
  by all known forms of sensory transduction
• Manifestation of ths common code (in H) si
  complex frequencies/patterns of EM discharges
  from brain neurons (John, 1990)
• Activation of system depends on specific patterns
  of EM signals space time config known as burst
  firing

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The H, the PH and ESP

• Test of autonomic ESP suggest the nornal brain UC
  and conc, scans space-time for objects that have
  impact on organism
• Talking about implicit memory the H and the
  amyg.
• For normal person, the process is unlikely to be
  reflected in awareness
• In altered states, burst firing may open the
  cerebral cortices with the result that
  impressions associated with the target achieve
  representation as mental images

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Meaning and the Amygdala

• Memory is about emotionally meaningful objects
• In ESP tasks, targets with ve meaning achieve
  higher results than ve.
• Spont psi events often charged with meaning (Van
  De Castle, 1994), with more than 50 about death
• Trivial events comprise small number of events
  (21 in Persinger 1974 21 in Sanwald, 1963)
• Centrality of meaning is evident in exp work also
• Dean (1996) people better at Id names of people
  known to them
• Radin (1996) responded better to erotic or
  violent targets

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• Emotional meaning determined by the A
• Feelings of fear, anx, apprehension are
  signatures of the A, as are feelings associated
  with aggression and depn
• Ehrenwald (1977 1986) in absence of emoioanlly
  charged attitudes and motivation, psi I unlikely
  to make an appearance
• Roll et al., (1998). Harribance studies only
  found psi when Judy klein and John Stump involved

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Who has thinner Boundaries then?

• Schizotypal personality disorder (Hartmann, 1991
  1998)
• a lot more into the perceptual field at any one
  time.
• tend to experience more synesthesia
• Evans (1997)
• relationship between schizotypy and subliminal
  processing
• lexical decision task below the threshold where
  conscious detection would occur (sig cor)
• Levin et al., (1998 1999)
• boundary thinness related to Rorschach boundary
  disruption
• Other characteristics?
• being female or feminine, having high creativity,
  scoring high on the Myers-Briggs
  intuition/feeling dimension, and being a lucid
  dreamer.

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The Transferred Potential Can the Brain Really
Communicate?

• Grinberg-Zylberbaum et al., (1994)
• one subject of an empathically bound pair was
  stimulated by flash lights
• wave form patterns similar to visual evoked
  potentials (VEP), using EEG, in the other
  non-stimulated subject.
• Wackermann et al (2003).
• separated human subjects in two acoustically and
  electro magnetically shielded rooms.
• visual-pattern reversal were elicited in one
  subject
• The results again indicated that correlations
  between brain activities of two separated
  subjects may occur

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Does psi exist in the brain?

• Is a lot more evidence, this an intro
• Depends on whom you ask, of course
• if it does exist, what is it really for?
• Got to be careful not to jump the gun, despite
  the evidence
• A physiological approach might help us understand
  the patterns demonstrated in spontaneous cases
  and the lab.
• Thus, a shift towards physiological assessment of
  psi might yield more consistent results in
  parapsychology