Presentiment Research: Past, Present, and Future

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Presentiment ResearchPast, Present, and Future

• Utrecht II
• 16 October 2008
• Eva Lobach
• University of Amsterdam

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Intro Eva Lobach

• Mathematics B.Sc.
• Psychology Research Methods M.Sc.
• 1999, University of Amsterdam
• Research projects on parapsychological subjects,
  intuition, and decision making
• (1999 present)
• Maths courses for psychology students
• Ph.D. project with Prof. Dr. Dick Bierman on
  intuitive decision making (2005 present).

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Presentiment
A Vague Sense of Impending Doom
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Presentiment definition

• Presentiment is also known as
• anomalous prestimulus response.
• Presentiment is an unconscious sensing of an
  event in the future.
• Presentiment may influence decision making.
• Presentiment can be measured as physiological
  changes (heartrate, EEG, skin conductance level,
  etc.).

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Presentiment Research Past

• Spontaneous cases inspired presentiment
  research.
• Early measurements of physiological processes
  (EEG, skin conductance) in parapsychological
  experiments. (Hartwell, 1978 Vassy, 1978).
• Analysis was cumbersome and error prone.
• Results were mixed.

Impulsive and intuitive decision to take day
off from work on 9/11/2001
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Presentiment Research Present (1/8)

• New series of presentiment experiments initiated
  by Dean Radin.
• Replicated by Dick Bierman.
• E.g., Bierman Radin, 1997

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Presentiment Research Present (2/8)

• Typical presentiment study
• Independent variable
• Emotional and neutral future events
• 30 randomly presented emotional and neutral
  pictures 2 1 ratio
• Dependent measure
• Electro Dermal Activity
• (Skin conductance level)

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Presentiment Research Present (3/8)
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Presentiment Research Present (4/8)

• Typical presentiment results

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Presentiment Research Present (5/8)

• Types of stimuli used in presentiment studies
• Visual stimuli
• Photos neutral, violent, and erotic (compared
  with each other)
• Light flashes (compared with no flash trials)
• Auditory stimuli
• Neutral and unpleasant sounds (compared with each
  other)
• Loud bursts of white noise or other startling
  sounds (compared with silence trials)
• All types of stimuli showed presentiment effects.

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Presentiment Research Present (6/8)

• Physiological measures used in presentiment
  studies
• Electrodermal activity (Skin Conductance Level or
  Skin Conductance Response)
• Heartrate changes
• EEG
• fMRI

All showed presentiment effects, not in all
studies. Method of analysis may be relevant
overall measures vs. individual consistency
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Presentiment Research Present (7/8)

• Types of participants in presentiment studies
• Unselected participants (about 10 studies)
• Meditators (3 studies)
• Therapeutic Touch students (one study)
• Men and women (all studies)

Scepticism may depress or counter
effects. Meditators showed mixed
results. Therapeutic Touch students seemed more
effective. Some evidence that women show more
effect.
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Presentiment Research Present (8/8)

• Variations in experimental design
• Participant initiates each trial trial course
  is always the same.
• Participant is passive timing of stimuli is
  randomly varied.
• Comparing different groups of participants and/or
  different consciousness states (e.g. meditation
  vs. non-meditation) in one experimental set-up

Effects of timing appear not critical to
presentiment effect. Effects of consciousness
states and types of participants are inconclusive
but intriguing.
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Presentiment Research Current Theoretical
Approaches (1/5)

• WHY vs. HOW Evolutionary perspective
• Focus on question why psi exists (Broughton,
  Carpenter)
• Presentiment Hypothesis
• Psi-effect will be stronger with threatening
  stimuli.
• Note Current presentiment studies comparing
  emotional/startle stimuli to neutral stimuli use
  this idea already as an implicit assumption.

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Presentiment Research Current Theoretical
Approaches (2/5)

• Decision Augmentation Theory (DAT May,
  Spottiswoode, Vassy)
• Experimental evidence that effect was due to
  lowered skin responses during no-stimulus trials.
• Presentiment Hypothesis
• Presentiment-effect is due to unconscious
  psi-augmented decisions of the experimenter.
• NOTE Hypothesis may be difficult to test.

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Presentiment Research Current Theoretical
Approaches (3/5)

• Time and causality Approaches from physics
• 1. Consciousness Induced Restored Time Symmetry
  (CIRTS Bierman) Consciousness may act as
  coherent absorber.
• Presentiment Hypothesis
• Presentiment-effect will be stronger if
  consciousness is more coherent.
• NOTE Difficult to define coherence in
  consciousness

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Presentiment Research Current Theoretical
Approaches (4/5)

• Time and causality Approaches from physics
• 2. Syntropy (Fantappiè, Vannini)
• Life is a consequence of advanced
• waves all living systems reflect retrocausality.
• Presentiment Hypothesis
• Presentiment-effect can be found in all living
  systems coherence is irrelevant.
• NOTE To what extent is presentiment different
  from life, or integrated in living systems?

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Presentiment Research Current Theoretical
Approaches (5/5)

• Time and causality Approaches from physics
• 3. Physics without causality (Shoup)
• Output of REGs is restricted by future
  conditions in the environment. REGs respond to
  these future conditions because they are
  unbiased.
• Presentiment Hypothesis
• Presentiment-effect increases when participants
  minds can act like REGs, i.e., remain
  undetermined.
• NOTE Like in Biermans CIRTS, an intriguing but
  questionable jump from physics to psychology.

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Presentiment Research The Future

• Further develop theories, continue to derive and
  test hypotheses.
• Find more money and people dedicated to this
  cause
• Connect with (mainstream) fields concerned with
  related, similarly perplexing fundamental
  questions, e.g., consciousness studies, quantum
  physics.
• Use experimental designs for presentiment studies
  that are familiar to psychologists, e.g.,
  precognitive habituation (Bem).
• Pre-select participants psi-gifted, special
  groups (e.g., meditators)
• Explore idiosyncratic physiological pre-stimulus
  responses.
• Causality is a pillar of science. Assuming
  current concept of causality is flawed Explore
  a-causal scientific approaches.
• Find inspiration in reports about enlightenment
  experience shows analogies to features of
  presentiment theories.

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Thank You