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Plain English Summary
This paper tackled a big problem in remote viewing research (where people try to 'see' distant targets using only their minds): how do you score whether someone actually described a target correctly without relying on subjective human opinion? The team, including Jessica Utts who later became president of the American Statistical Association, borrowed a clever math tool called fuzzy sets — essentially a way to handle vagueness numerically — to automatically measure how accurate and reliable a viewer's descriptions were. They tested it on six remote-viewing trials, and impressively, the automated scores lined up well with what 37 independent human judges thought. The combined statistics were significant, with a notably strong correlation of 0.67. They also sorted 200 targets into 19 distinct visual groups, giving researchers a principled way to pick fair decoy images for future experiments.
Research Notes
Key methodology paper from the Stargate/SRI remote viewing program. Co-authored by Jessica Utts (later ASA president) and May (program director). Represents the most rigorous attempt of its era to move RV evaluation from subjective global judgments to automated quantitative scoring. The fuzzy set approach directly influenced later analytical developments and connects to May's decision augmentation theory.
Fuzzy set technology is applied to automate analysis of remote-viewing data from SRI International's government-sponsored program. The technique encodes target and response material as fuzzy subsets of a 131-element Universal Set of Elements, then computes accuracy (percent of target correctly described), reliability (percent of response that was correct), and a figure of merit (FM = accuracy × reliability). Tested on 6 RV trials from a photomultiplier experiment against ground truth from 37 independent analysts, the FM values showed good agreement with subjective assessments. Combined result: z = 1.633, p < .05, r = 0.67. Cluster analysis of 200 targets yielded 19 visually distinct groups, providing a quantitative definition of target orthogonality for constructing balanced decoy sets.
Related Papers
Same Research Program
Cites
- Information transmission under conditions of sensory shielding — Targ, Russell (1974)
- A Perceptual Channel for Information Transfer over Kilometer Distances: Historical Perspective and Recent Research — Puthoff, Harold E (1976)
- "Future Telling": A Meta-Analysis of Forced-Choice Precognition Experiments, 1935-1987 — Honorton, Charles (1989)
Companion
- Replication and Meta-Analysis in Parapsychology — Utts, Jessica (1991)
- Correlations of Random Binary Sequences with Pre-Stated Operator Intention: A Review of a 12-Year Program — Jahn, Robert G (1997)
- Apparent Association Between Effect Size in Free Response Anomalous Cognition Experiments and Local Sidereal Time — Spottiswoode, S. James P (1997)
Cited By
- Nonlocality, Intention, and Observer Effects in Healing Studies: Laying a Foundation for the Future — Schwartz, Stephan A (2010)
- Information and Uncertainty in Remote Perception Research — Dunne, Brenda J (2003)
- Follow-up on the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) Remote Viewing Experiments — Escolà-Gascón, Álex (2023)
More in Remote Viewing
Exploring the Correlates and Nature of Subjective Anomalous Interactions with Objects (Psychometry): A Mixed Methods Survey
The Location and Reconstruction of a Byzantine Structure in Marea, Egypt, Including a Comparison of Electronic Remote Sensing and Remote Viewing
Greg Kolodziejzyk's 13-Year Associative Remote Viewing Experiment Results
Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence: The Case of Non-Local Perception, a Classical and Bayesian Review of Evidences
Remote Viewing as Applied to Futures Studies
📋 Cite this paper
May, Edwin C, Utts, Jessica M, Humphrey, Beverly S, Luke, Wanda L. W, Frivold, Thane J, Trask, Virginia V (1990). Advances in Remote-Viewing Analysis. Journal of Parapsychology.
@article{may_1990_advances,
title = {Advances in Remote-Viewing Analysis},
author = {May, Edwin C and Utts, Jessica M and Humphrey, Beverly S and Luke, Wanda L. W and Frivold, Thane J and Trask, Virginia V},
year = {1990},
journal = {Journal of Parapsychology},
}