Several recent studies, inspired by psi theories such as Stanford’s psi-mediated instrumental response (PMIR) model, have employed a tacit precognition protocol to test the notion that extrasensory perception may be nonintentional. After remarkable initial success, outcomes have been more inconsistent. One possible reason for the observed variability in results is that the studies were conducted by different experimenters. The current study therefore addressed a number of dimensions regarding participants’ interaction with either a male or female experimenter. 52 participants took part in 12 nonintentional precognition trials and a positive or negative outcome task contingent on their performance. The total number of precognitive hits was marginally above mean chance expectation but failed to reach statistical significance. There were significant positive correlations between participants’ precognition scores and their ratings of the positivity of their interaction with the experimenter, their rapport with the experimenter, and their level of relaxation. There were also notable differences between the two experimenters with respect to the relationships between their participant-experimenter interaction ratings and participants’ tacit precognition scores; all correlations were in the predicted direction for the female experimenter, but in the opposite direction for the male experimenter.

Context: Many spontaneous cases of extra-sensory perception (ESP) seem to occur without the conscious intent of the experient to manifest any anomalous phenomena. Indeed, Stanford’s psimediated instrumental response (PMIR) theory, which frames ESP as a goal-oriented function, goes as far as to suggest that such intent may be counterproductive to psi. Objectives: The present study was the latest to build on the successful paradigm developed by Luke and colleagues in testing the non-intentional psi hypothesis and potential covariates of psi task success. This study focused on the ability of latent inhibition - an organism’s cognitive tendency to filter out apparently irrelevant information - to predict an individual’s sensitivity to psi stimuli. Method: Fifty participants completed a two-part auditory discrimination performance measure of latent inhibition, a battery of questionnaires and a 15-trial, binary, forced-choice, non-intentional precognition task. They were then either positively or negatively rewarded via images from subsets which they had pre-rated, seeing more images from their preferred subsets the better they performed at the psi task and vice-versa. Results: Participants scored a mean hit rate of 7.96 (MCE = 7.50), which just failed to reach a statistically significant level, t(48) = 1.62, p = .06, one-tailed, ESr = 0.23. However, latent inhibition was found to be unrelated to participants’ precognitive performance.

Smith (1998) has shown that different people use the term 'luck' to mean different things, some of which might be used euphemistically to account for psi experiences. However, previous luck-psi experiments have only measured luck via the Perceived Personal Luckiness (PPL) scale without investigating what participants actually mean by the term, so in this study luck beliefs were measured using the Questionnaire of Beliefs about Luck (QBL). Previous literature indicates that luck might best be understood in terms of Stanford's model of 'psi-mediated instrumental response' (PMIR), so 100 participants completed a PMIR-inspired non-intentional precognition experiment with static fractal images as targets, and depending on success experienced either a task involving erotic images (psi incentive) or a boring vigilance task (psi disincentive). The mean psi score over ten forced-choice trials was 2.85 (MCE = 2.5), which gives a significant overall precognition effect (t[99] = 2.508, p = 0.014, r = 0.244). Furthermore, scores on the PPL and the Luck subscale of the QBL were found to correlate significantly with precognition performance (r = 0.263, p = 0.008 for both). However, only the Luck subscale was found to be a significant predictor variable of psi score (adjusted R² = 0.06, t[99] = 2.7, p = 0.008), indicating that beliefs about luck are more relevant to psi performance than PPL alone. Psi task performance was also related to belief in psi (rs[98] = 0.236, p = 0.02) and suggestively with belief in the paranormal (rs[98] = 0.194, p = 0.10), offering tentative support for the notion that psi ability drives belief initially. Precognition performance was also found to be suggestively higher amongst the erotically reactive than the erotically unreactive (t[99] = 1.65, p = 0.10), offering indirect support for the experiment's validity and the need-serving aspect of PMIR. A number of other exploratory hypotheses are discussed. The findings support the suggested relationship between luck and psi but further investigations should consider beliefs about luck and not just perceived luckiness.

An opportunity sample of 98, mostly undergraduate [1], participants completed Thalbourne's Transliminality Scale (Form B) [2-3] plus three subscales from Hartmann's Boundary Structure Questionnaire [4] (sleep/wake/dream, unusual experiences, thoughts/feelings/moods) plus a psychic experiences scale which included some of Hartmann's items' The results support the hypothesis, and Houran et al.'s [5] findings, that there is a significant positive correlation between selected boundary structure subscales and a measure of transliminality (range r: .384-.615). Our results are similar to Houran et al.'s in that only certain subscales were significant predictors of transliminality when the effects of others are taken into account. In this study only the psychic experiences scale, which is not one of Hartmann's original subscales [4, 6], was a significant predictor when the effects of the three other subscales were accounted for. The theories behind the concepts of boundary structure and transliminality suggest that individuals differ according to the extent to which different areas of the brain/mind are separated.

The notion that psi may be able to function without conscious intent and mediate adaptive consequences is a feature of several theories of psi. In particular, Stanford’s “Psi-mediated Instrumental Response” (PMIR) model predicts that psi can operate without conscious awareness, facilitating advantageous outcomes by triggering preexisting behaviours in response to opportunities or threats in the environment. Luke and colleagues tested elements of this model over 4 studies involving an implicit, forced-choice precognition task in which participants were positively or negatively rewarded based on their performance in relation to the MCE. The 4 studies combined yielded significant evidence of an implicit precognition effect. The present study attempted to replicate this precognition effect using a more refined contingent reward system employing images from the International Affective Picture System. The number of trials per participant was increased to enhance statistical power, whereas all other design elements remained consistent with the original studies. Fifty participants achieved a tacit precognition hit rate marginally greater than the MCE, but the extent of their outperformance was not significant. Nevertheless, together with Luke and colleagues’ 4 studies, the combined effect size remains significant (Stouffer Z = 3.25, p = 0.001). Findings are interpreted in relation to Stanford’s PMIR model.

A number of theories of psi such as Stanford’s psi-mediated instrumental response (PMIR) model suggest psi can function without a person’s awareness, and that their intent to exhibit psi may be counterproductive. However, few parapsychological studies have directly compared participants’ performance at intentional and nonintentional versions of equivalent tasks. This study sought to address this issue whilst exploring the role of lability, suggested by Stanford to be predictive of a person’s propensity to respond to extrasensory stimuli. 50 participants took part in both intentional and nonintentional versions of a 10-trial, binary, forced-choice precognition task. A contingent outcome task system involving positive pictures as reward for hit trials and negative pictures as punishment for miss trials was administered on a trial-by-trial basis. Participants scored marginally fewer hits than the mean chance expectation in both versions of the task, with no tangible difference in their performance between tasks. Furthermore, no relationship was found between the number of precognitive hits they achieved and their scores on a composite psychometric measure of lability, nor its constituent elements. However, participants’ expectations that their luck could aid their performance, as well as their emotional reactivity, were significantly positively related to their tacit psi scores.

This study explored the role of the sender in a dream ESP task by considering the effects of presence of a sender (sender, no sender) and the receiver’s expectancy that a sender was present. Forty participants each completed a sender and a no sender trial on consecutive nights by keeping a dream diary of all mentation they could recall when they awoke. The order of trials was randomised across participants. On no-sender nights a randomly selected video clip was played repeatedly from 2:00 until 6:30am; on sender nights a sender would also watch the clip between 6:00 and 6:30am and attempt to communicate its content. Both sender and no sender conditions produced above chance hit rates (30% and 35% respectively), but z scores for similarity ratings did not deviate significantly from chance (sender night: t(39) = 0.92, p = .18; no sender night: t(39) = 1.11, p = .14, one-tailed). There was no difference in performance in terms of sender conditions (z = -0.22, p = .41, one-tailed) or sender expectancy (z = -0.18, p = .46, one-tailed), failing to support the proposal that senders play an active role in dream ESP success. Possible improvements in the manipulation of participant expectancy are discussed.