Information Acquisition Rates in Forced-Choice ESP Experiments: Precognition Does Not Work

as Well as Present-Time ESP1

ABSTRACT: Quantification of the amount o f information acquired in successful, forced-choice ESP experiments is possible using a measure o f the average number o f bits per trial. Using this measure. 53 studies o f present-time ESP. where the percipient attempted to call currently existing targets, and 32 studies o f precognitive ESP, where the percipient attempted to call targets that would only be generated (by a random process) at some later time, were reviewed. A striking and robust performance difference was found: present-time ESP can work up to 10 times as well as precognitive ESP in forced-choice tests. Three theories are proposed to account for this difference: a psychological theory that there are generally held biases against precognition in Western culture, so percipients don't try as hard: a two-process theory that present-time ESP and precognition are two basically dif- ferent processes. with inherently different characteristics: and a temporal-break theory that ESP is a unitary process. but something about the nature o f time itself attenuates E S P performance that extends into the future.

In 1980 I became interested in the question "How much infor- mation can the ESP channel carry when it is working well?" In some card-guessing experiments, where only a slight (even if statistically significant) deviation from mean chance expectation exists. it seems obvious that little information is being conveyed on each trial; but occasional star performances suggest much greater possibilities. This paper is an initial approach to quantifying the amount of information that a well-functioning ESP percipient can get, with unexpected and important observations about present- time versus precognitive ESP functioning.

Measurement Procedures

Given our present state of knowledge, estimating the amount of information conveyed in a free-response study is very difficult and

' A brief version o f this paper was presented at the Twenty-Fourth Annual Convention of the Parapsychological Association. Syracuse. New York , August 18-22. 1981.--Ed.

The Jortnrul of rhe Americcrrr Sociery for Ps.vc~hiccrl Research Vol. 77, October 1983

294 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research

largely subjective. In this paper, therefore, I decided to deal solely with forced-choice ESP test data: card-guessing studies and similar procedures. In a forced-choice decision, standard information theory tells us the number of bits (R) necessary on any trial to make a correct decision. Thus we need only one bit to make a binary decision, but 2.32 bits, on the average, to correctly make a five-choice decision. The number of bits given by this information theory convention is a standardized representation of the amount of information needed, i.e., it is standardized to the convention that all of the information is transmitted in a binary code. .

We know that some proportion of correct calls on any forced- choice ESP test are correct by chance alone, however, so we must factor out this chance baseline. Timm's (1973) psi coefficient (++) is appropriate for this. It is calculated for ESP hitting as follows:

H - N p ++ '= - N 4

Here H is the number of hits, N is the number of trials, p is the a priori probability of a hit by chance alone, and 9 = 1 - p. The psi coefficient for ESP hitting gives us a number between zero and one, and this coefficient represents the proportion of time hits were made on trials after the mean chance baseline is factored out. Perfect ESP performance on every trial of a run would give ++ = 1, while no ESP (only chance expectation performance) would give ++ = 0.

In comparing different experiments, we cannot simply compare statistical significance levels to see which was more successful unless the a priori probability of a hit and the number of trials in both experiments were identical. The same proportional deviation from mean chance expectation can lead to much higher significance levels in a 10-choice test as compared with, say, a two-choice test. The psi coefficient provides a straightforward comparison of the proportion of the time psi was presumably operating in two or more experiments, but it totally ignores the fact that one test may be more difficult, requiring more information to be conveyed for a hit, than another. Thus I devised the following mea~ure,R,,~ to mea- sure the average amount of information conveyed per trial in a particular experiment.

My measure is not identical to the information-theoretic measures proposed by Timm (1973) or by Beloff and Bate (1971). although 1 have undoubtedly been stimulated to derive this measure by earlier sources in the parapsychological jour- nals.

I Information Acquisition Rates

( The average number of bits conveyed per trial (X.) is equal to the number of bits needed for success on an individual trial (RT) multi- plied by the proportion of trials on which ESP was presumably operating after chance hits are factored out (++).

I Maximum Channel Capacity

Being an optimist about our potential ability to make ESP work well, I am interested in just how well it can work; what indications do we have of maximum possible ESP channel capacity?

I model the degree to which ESP functions for a given individual at a given time as a function of the individual's innate ability, how strongly this ability was (usually) suppressed or cultivated in his or her development, and multiple psychological factors (internal state and external testing conditions) affecting a given performance. Since we seldom seriously select for high innate ESP ability or ESP ability that has been thoroughly cultivated before a percipient comes to the lab, and since our current understanding of and ability to control psychological factors affecting performance are very poor, it follows that the typical ESP performance in the laboratory is under far from optimal conditions, and so is almost useless in estimating maximum possible ESP performance ability. Only the best performances will be useful for this estimation. Possible chan- nel capacity must be at least as high as (or higher than) our highest observed capacities.

To estimate maximum ESP channel capacity, I quickly scanned the literature for studies that I recalled from memory that were methodologically sound and highly successful. My memory turned @ out to implicitly define "highly successful" primarily on the basis of extremely high (often 10"o 1 and better) odds against the res~llts being due to chance. I reviewed some dozen sgdies selected this way and calculated the mean bit rate per trial (R,) for them. Since I was interested in maximum performance possibilities, whenever studies were broken down into individual percipient data or indi- vidual run or condition data, I used the most successful unit (indi- vidual andlor condition) of analysis. Thus I used four known per- fect Zener card runs (conveniently summarized in Rhine, 1964) to get four indications that maximum channel capacity might go as high as 2.32 bits per trial, rather than submerging these runs into the larger overall studies of which they were a part.

As would be expected, some of the studies that were very statistically significant were not impressive at all in terms of aver- age information conveyed per trial. Ryzl's percipient, Pave1 Stepanek, for example, scored 11,978 hits in 19,350 binary calls (Ryzl. 1966). a result which has enormous odds against its being

296 Jourt~al of the Americun Society for Psychical Research

due to chance ( p < but this performance represents a quite low bit rate per trial: R, = .04.

-

I found 10 instances of bit rates that were greater than one bit per trial, the highest being two instances of 5.7 bits per trial on confi- dence calls for exact hits, using ordinary playing cards as targets (Kanthamani and Kelly, 1974).Thus we can tentatively conclude that maximum channel capacity for ESP may be in the five to six bits-per-trial range, and possibly higher.

Is Precognitioti Harder?

In examining the previous studies in order to estimate maximum channel capacity, I retrospectively noted that none of the very successful studies involved precognitive ESP, only present-time GESP or clairvoyance. A dozen studies is not a large sample, but it still seemed odd that not a single precognitive study showed up. 1 therefore decided to systematically review the bulk of the pub- lished, successful ESP studies so that I could compare present-time ESP with precognitive ESP.

I reviewed the literature. subject to the following restrictions: First, I reviewed only studies in which there was clear evidence of ESP hitting as a nlui11 efi>c.t, significant at the .05 level of significance or better. 1 call these "successful" studies. Studies whose only significance involved differential effects, psi-missing. etc., were excluded.' Second. I continued using only forced-choice. studies. which lent themselves to accurate quantitative evaluation of bit rate per trial.5 Third. I assumed that the methodology for

' My own study of the out-of-body experiences of Miss Z (Tan. 1968). in which she correctly called a five-digit number in one try. suggests that bit rate might go as high as 16.6 bits per trial. but I am not including it in any data analyses. A figure based on one trial seems too unsure.

Given my earlier model of factors affecting ESP performance in a given situa- tion, it follows that occasionally a parapsychological experiment will not show any significant signs of ESP because of some combination of the percipients' innate ability being too low or too thoroughly suppressed. and of the psychological condi- tions of the experiment being unfavorable for ESP manifestation. Since I am In- terested in evaluating how strongly ESP manifests when it manifests. rather than arguing about the existence of ESP. I view statistically insignificant experiments as more representative of failures of technique for eliciting psi than of samples of levels of manifestation of ESP.

While free-response material often seems to imply very high information acqui- sition rates. so that leaving it out of this study may create an important gap. we should note that the high information acquisition rates may be apparent rather than real. In forced-choice studies, percipients generally devote only a few seconds to

sound ESP experiments had been adequately worked out by the late 1930s. so for quality control I reviewed articles published in mainstream, refereed parapsychology journals. namely, the Jolrrntrl of Parapsgcholog~ from 1937 to the present (1980). the Jo1.1rnc11 of t/le American Soc-irrg j i ) r P.sychic~u/ Rcsc~c~rcii from 1941 (the ear- liest date in the University library) to the present, and the E1o.o- pent, Jolrrrl~i of Parup~ycholop from 1975 (its earliest publication date) to the present. Since I scanned the journals by reading titles. it is possible that I have missed a few relevant studies whose titles did not make it immediately clear that they were experimental works, but I believe I have found the vast majority of successful studies. Where I already knew of relevant data published in books I turned to them, but this was rare. Fourth, I continued to use only the peak performance data from each study. And finally. I did not use data contributed by any experimenters whose integrity had later been brought into serious question, such as Soal or Levy.

Given these criteria. 1 found 53 successful studies of present-time ESP (either GESP or clairvoyance procedures) and 32 successful studies of precognition. All the studies are included in the reference list. As single published studies sometimes reported several ex- periments. there are fewer studies listed than there are data points on the graphs.

Surveying the bulk of a body of published literature in this manner necessarily results in the inclusion of studies with widely varying conditions and procedures. Ideally, subgroups shoi~ld be formed of relatively comparable studies. But this is not possible for the parapsychological literature here surveyed, for it would have the effect. due to the wide variations, of making the subgroups too small for useful analysis. Surveying all the relevant literature selected as described above has. on the other hand. an important advantage: small effects will not show up: only large-magnitude effects that can overcome the effects of random variation will survive such a survey.

1 RESULTS I Distrihrrtion of Bit Rates in E.rperin~et~ttr1 Strrdirs

i Figure 1 shows the relationship between level of ESP perfor- mance and the time interval between response and target genera-

I

each trial. but in free response studies they may often devote 20 minutes or more to a single response. It may be that the same low information acquisition rates apply to free-response studies. and it is just the summing up of many items over the longer time periods that creates the impression of high information acquisition rates. Obviously research is needed here that takes the time devoted to the ESP task into account.

Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research

0.01 Lz, I I I PRESENT 1 MINUTE 1 DAY ' 1 MONTH

1 SECOND 1 HOUR 1 W E E K 1 YEAR

TEMPORAL INTERVAL

Fig. 1 . Relationship between level of ESP performance in mean bits per trial (2s) and temporal interval between response and target generation. Note that both axes are logarithmic, to handle the wide data range, and are broken at their low ranges.

Information Acquisirinn Rates 299

tion for all 85 experiments. Logarithmic scales6 are used for both @ ve*ical and horizontal axes because of the wide range of data to be plotted. Rs ranges from a low of .02 bits per trial to a high of 5.7 bits per trial, and the time intervals in precognition studies range from the fractional second intervals in electronic machine-tested precognition to one year. Many of the electronic machine-based

studies do not specify the exact interval that elapsed between the time the response was recorded and the time the random generator generated the precognitive target, so as a graphical convention I have assumed this interval to be .2 second in all such studies.

As can be seen, there are many studies. both present-time and precognitive, in which the measured channel capacity is quite low. If we want to characterize the best of successfir1 (given the sam- pling restrictions) experimental parapsychology as a whole, com- bining both the present-time and precognitive studies, we could say that clearly successful forced-choice ESP studies show an informa- tion rate of .49 bits per trial on the average, with a standard deviation of 2 1.04 bits. The very large standard deviation here reminds us of what is shown graphically, viz., that bit rates are not normally distributed. Judging from the graph, most successful ESP experiments show an information rate somewhere between .04 and 4 bits per trial, an order of magnitude variation. The most suc- cessful conditions in successful ESP experiments have yielded an- other order of magnitude better results, with occasional results up to 5.7 hits per trial.

Present-Time ESP l-ersus Precognition. Figure 1 suggests a dra- m matic difference in maximum bit rate per trial between present-time and precognitive ESP. To test the significance of this differencp,, I used a Mann-Whitney U test (Siegel. 1956). (The U test is almost as powerful as a conventional t test, but does not make the as- sumptions of normality of distribution that would invalidate the use of a t test on this data.) As Figure 1 shows, present-time ESP results can range an order of magnitude higher than precognition tests in mean bit rate per trial. The overall distribution differences are significant (U = 462, transformed Z = -3.50) at p < 5 x two-tailed. Bearing in mind the above cautions about lack of nor- mality, present-time ESP studies show a mean of .70 bits per trial (standard deviation is 1.27), whiie precognitive ESP studies show a mean of only .13 bits per trial (standard deviation of .14). Precog-

Readers used to linear coordinate graphs should remember that logarithmic graphs visually compress differences that would be striking on linear coordinates: Comparing Figure I and Figure 2 will be helpful.

300 Journal o f t h ~ American Society for Psychical Research

nition studies show a maximum bit rate of .66 bits per trial, with most (73%) of them not exceeding .20 bits per trial. While many (56%) of the present-time ESP studies also fail to exceed .20 bits per trial, a substantial number show up to an order of magnitude greater bit rates. In terms of maximum channel capacity, then, present-time ESP can apparently convey up to 10 times as much information per trial on the average as precognitive ESP.

GESP versus Clairvoyance. I was also curious as to whether present-time GESP procedures might be more effective than pres- ent-time clairvoyance procedures: my personal bias is. to expect that the act of "sending" can be an active psi process. The quality of that "sending" act would be quite variable in GESP studies in general, but still present.

One of the 53 studies did not lend itself to a clear classification as clairvoyance or GESP, and so was omitted. Otherwise there were 14 GESP studies and 38 clairvoyance ones. Inspection of the distribu- tions showed strong departures from normality, so the Mann- Whitney U test was again used for comparison. Contrary to my expectations, there is a suggestion that clairvoyance procedures produce higher hit rates than GESP techniques (U = 175. transformed Z = - 1.88; p < .06, two-tailed). I would not make too much of this finding, however, as a change in a single top data point from the clairvoyance to the GESP column would destroy this suggestive difference. It seems most conservative to conclude that GESP versus clairvoyance conditions seem to make no dif- ference in this sample of successful ESP studies. This should not be generalized to parapsychological studies in general. however, given the restrictive sampling criteria used in collecting the present data.

Precognitio~l and Temporal Distance

Since most ordinary physical energies fall off in intensity with increasing spatial distance, the question whether precognitive per- formance might, analogously, fall off with increasing temporal dis- tance' between response and target creation is of interest. Ideally this should be investigated by systematic comparisons of various temporal distances within a single experiment, where other factors

' AS Douglas Dean and I realized in the course of a conversation about precogni- tion some years ago, however, we never deal with only temporal distance in precognition. The movement of the earth around the sun and the drift of the whole solar system through space adds a spatial distance component of about 193.5 miles per second of time.

are held constant; but almost no experiments of this type have been done, so we will examine the present data.

Figure 1 strongly suggests that present-time ESP and precogni- tive ESP may be different processes; or, if they are a single pro- cess, there is a tremendous fall-off in performance in the interval from the present to only .2 second. For all the data plotted j~ Figure 1 (both present-time and precognitive), the correlation of R , and temporal distance is not significant (r = -.Or). although a linear correlation coefficient may not be appropriate here.

If precognitive ESP is a different process than present-time ESP. then a possible relationship between performance and temporal distance should be examined for the precognitive d3ta alone. Fig- ure 2 plots only the precognitive data, and plots R, on a linear, rather than a logarithmic, scale so that differences are more readily grasped. (The time scale is still logarithmic.) Again, however. the linear correlation coefficient is insignificant (r = - .05).

Given my interest in r77uxinlrrr~l performance potential, a third way of modeling the data suggests itself: Consider the largest R , at each time interval to be the variable of interesl. with values below that representing less than maximum performances that were derermined by variables other than the inherent nature of ESP. That is, less than maximum performances may represent lowered motivation, psychological conflict. nonoptimal experimental condi- tions, etc., and only the maximal performances need be examined for their relationship to time. If we take the 13 maximal data points in each temporal category (including the present) having at least one data point. we then find that r = -. 14, which is still insignifi- cant. If we examine the precognitive data alone, with 12 data points. r = -. 17, also insignifi~ant.~

The above correlations should be taken with reservations, how- ever: 32 data points are too few to map a range of .2 second to 3.15 x 10' seconds (one year) adequately. Therefore, while a strong difference between present-time and precognitive ESP performance is clear, the question of possible fall-off of precognitive perfor- n~ance with temporal difference is still open.

"or those who want to speculate on possible relationships in spite of the very low N. the following regression equations have been fitted to the I precognitive maximum data points, where 1 = time in seconds.

Linear: & = u I + b = . 1 9 b = - 3 . 7 ~ Exponential: !$=a cM c r = . l l b = - 7 . 0 4 ~ 1 0 - ~ ~ Logarithmic: K$=a + b In r u = .4? h = - .02 Power Curve: R$=u I* u = . 3 9 b = - - . I 3

Journal o f the American Society .for Psychical Research 0

MEAN BITS PER TRIAL, R.,,

Fig. 2. Eelationship between level o f precognitive ESP performance in mean bits per trial (R,) and temporal interval between response and subsequent target gen- eration. Note that the vertical axis is linear but the horizontal is logarithmic and broken.

Infi,r,r.mation Acquisition Rates

How Frequently ESP is Used Psi coefficients were computed for the same 85 studies: the

results are plotted in Figure 3 . The psi coefficient is a measure of how frequently the ESP process is activated. regardless of target '

difficulty, and so can be used as a rough measure of how hard percipients tried (and succeeded) in using ESP. As with the mean

I I bit rate per trial data, the psi-coefficient analysis shows that ESP is activated much less frequently in precognitive studies than in real- time ESP experiments.

Because the range of psi-coefficient values is not so enormous as that for R,, descriptive statistics based on assumptions of normality are moderately accurate. For present-time ESP, the mean psi coef- ficient is .28 with a standard deviation of .32. while for precognitive ESP it is .06, with a standard deviation of .06. The ranges of the psi coefficients displayed are also quite different: no precognitive study exceeds $+ = .33 and most (77%) are below . lo. while the present-time studies show six instances of perfect ESP functioning and most (56%) show psi coefficients greater than . lo. The dif- ferences are highly significant ( U = 389, transformed Z = -4.16; p 4 3 x two-tailed).

To recapitulate this study's findings, an examination of the bulk of successful, quantitative studies of forced-choice ESP shows that present-time ESP experiments (GESP or clairvoyance) generally have a significantly higher mean information transmission rate per

*trial than do experiments in precognition. The most successful present-time studies show 10 times more bit acquisition than the most successful precognitive studies. I shall propose three possible theories to account for this difference.

A Psychological Theory

If precognition studies generally don't work as well as present- time ESP studies, it might be due to some actual difference in the Processes used for information gathering in the two modes of ESP, or it might be due to a psychological factor. We could hypothesize that because precognition appears harder, given our cultural pre- conceptions, percipients don't try as hard, and so don't do as well,

Precognitive experiments.

A Two-Process Theory

Another theory to account for these data, which I shall call the two-~rocess theory, is that present-time ESP is a different mech-

304 Jortmal (!f 1 1 7 ~ A I I I P ~ ~ ( . ~ ~ I Socic~y f o r P S ~ C I I I C N I Rc>.ypoI.( .h

PSI COEFFICIENT. 4'+

Fig. 3. Relationship between amount of time ESP is used ( $ + I and tempora1 interval between response and targel generation. Note that the venical axis is linear but the horizontal is logarithmic and broken.

Acquisition Rates 305

anism or process than precognitive ESP. We could further theorize that when the precognitive process itself is operative, it is unaf- fected by temporal distance. This second theory must be qualified, however, by reminding ourselves that it is based on very few data points over an eight-orders-of-magnitude range of time.

A ~ e m ~ o r a l - B r e a k Theory

An alternative hypothesis, which I shall call the temporal-break theory, is that there is only one, unitary ESP process, but external reality itself is strongly different for the present moment and any future moments, so that it is much more difficult to use ESP to get information about the future. Again, we could postulate as an additional theory that temporal distance per se does not matter, only the distinction between present-time and any future time, subject to the paucity of data points mentioned above.

Comments on the Three Theories

AS shown in Figures 1 and 3, both the mean bits per trial and the psi-coefficient afialyses show that ESP is activated much less fre- quently in precognitive than in real-time experiments. This could be interpreted as supporting the psychological theory that perci- pients don't try as hard (or are not as successful in activating the ESP process in spite of their trying), or as supporting a theory that precognition is inherently harder, for unknown reasons, than pre- ent-time ESP. The psychological argument seems moderately lausible, but one would think that of the many percipients in-

volved in 32 successful precognition experiments, surely some would not have an antiprecognition bias. Is cultural conditioning that uniform? Nevertheless, the psychological theory deserves closer examination; it may be that the difference is best explained by some other psychological interpretation not requiring such an an- tlprecognition bias.

If present-time and precognitive ESP are indeed basically dif- ferent processes, then they will probably show other kinds of differences in addition to the one reported here. This consequence of the two-process theory is difficult to test at present, as ESP is characterized now as "characterless"-i.e., we do not know of any bounds of quantitative and qualitative aspects of ESP functioning that would limit it in any way and thus constitute characteristics. Given the very few studies of ESP that have been done, however,

with the number of questions we could ask about it, we may find that ESP has many characteristics that we simply haven:t

Yet. Thus a consequence of the two-process theory is

306 Journal of thc Americatz Society for Psychicai Rrsmrch

potentially testable: if we do begin to Identify characteristics of ESP. then the theory's implication of other differences should become testable in practice.

a If, on the other hand, the temporal-break theory is a better fi t to

reality, we would not expect to find differences in other qualities of present-time and precognitive ESP apart from differences inherent in the nature of time itself. What kind of theory of time can we envision that gives reality to both the present and the future, but makes the present much stronger or more psychically detectable than the future? If present-time ESP does produce stronger "signals" than precognitive ESP, might this make the discrimi- natory process I have called trans-temporal inhibition (Tart, 1978) more efficient?

It is also possible that precognition per se may not be a single process but two or more processes. Russell Targ9 has suggested that the plot of R, in Figure 2 resembles radioactive decay plots where two different kinds of atoms, with different half lives, are present. Thus there might be a short-term precognitive process that functions from a fraction of a second to somewhere in the ncigh- borhood of five minutes, and a long-term precognitive proces\ that functions at a lower level of information flow but at intervals of up to one year. It is possible to carry out a post hoc analysis that shows a suggestive difference ( t = 1.93, df = 28; p < .05, one- tailed) between precognitive data gathered over temporal intervals of more than five minutes versus data gathered over intervals of five minutes or less. This is an elaboration of Targ's earlier model of precognition (Targ, 1973). which predicted a fall-off in precogni- tion with increasing temporal distance. Concepts of immediate, short-term, and long-term memory have been very useful in under- standing human memory phenomena, so this type of theorizing may be of value in understanding ESP. Predictively based research

a is needed to explore such theories.

The present finding of a large difference between present time and precognitive ESP in forced-choice tests is quite robust: it is not a small difference that would drop into insignificance with the shift of only a few data points. It might be argued that some qualitative free-response precognition data suggest high bit rates, but until we know how to adequately quantify that kind of data and take re- sponse time into account, we cannot draw on it very usefully. If new studies demonstrate strong precognitive ESP functioning, with bit rates in the one to five bits-per-trial range, the present finding will be challenged. In addition to general research on the nature of precognition then, attempts to produce very high level precognitive performances are also necessary, as is research to determine

Personal communication. 1981.

,,,formation dcquisirion Rates - - we are dealing with psychological factors inhibiting pre-

two kinds of ESP, or a real quality of time.

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Information Acquisition Rates

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Department of Psychology University of California, Davis Davis, Calif. 9.5616