Mental Connection at Distance: Useful for Solving Difficult Tasks?
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Plain English Summary
Can someone help you pass a test just by thinking really hard about the answers from far away? That's what researchers at the University of Padova tried to find out. In the first experiment, 40 people tried to pick real Chinese symbols from fakes β sometimes with a distant helper mentally 'sending' the right answers, sometimes alone. With the helper, scores jumped about 10% above what you'd expect from pure guessing, a modest but statistically real bump backed up by Bayesian analysis (a method that measures how strongly evidence supports a claim). A second experiment with 70 people using a simpler sun-or-moon task found a similar 9% boost. Intriguingly, these effects are comparable in size to classic telepathy-style ganzfeld experiments, but here nobody needed to sit in a dark room with ping-pong balls on their eyes β participants were just doing ordinary tasks.
Research Notes
Part of Tressoldi's program at University of Padova testing non-local properties of human mind. Uses both frequentist and Bayesian statistical approaches. CRITICAL FIX (Session 50): catalog originally had wrong authors (Pederzoli, Caini, Ferrini, Melloni, Richeldi, Duma β from a different Tressoldi paper), wrong year (2014β2011), and wrong ID keyword (eeg_correlations β paper is behavioral, not EEG).
Two experiments at University of Padova testing non-local mental connection. Experiment 1 (N=40): participants identified real vs false Chinese ideograms in two sessions β one with a distant helper mentally suggesting correct answers, one without (single-blind, counterbalanced). Suggestion condition: M=11.33 (SD=1.62) vs no-suggestion M=10.55 (SD=1.84, MCE=10); paired t=2.25, ES=0.44, BF10=2.6; suggestion binomial z=3.7, BF10=23.8. Net increase 10.3% above MCE. Experiment 2 (N=70): simpler sun/moon task; M=5.44 vs MCE=5.0, t=2.27, ES=0.27, BF10=2.8; net increase 8.8%. Absorption (Tellegen) did not moderate the effect. Results comparable to ganzfeld effect sizes but without altered sensory states.
Links
Related Papers
Companion
- Replicable Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Evidence of Correlated Brain Signals Between Physically and Sensory Isolated Subjects β Richards, Todd L (2005)
- Evidence for Correlations Between Distant Intentionality and Brain Function in Recipients: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Analysis β Achterberg, J (2005)
Cites
- Meta-Analysis of Free-Response Studies, 1992β2008: Assessing the Noise Reduction Model in Parapsychology β Storm, Lance (2010)
- Distant intentionality and the feeling of being stared at: Two meta-analyses β Schmidt, Stefan (2004)
- Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect β Bem, Daryl J (2011)
- Correlations between brain electrical activities of two spatially separated human subjects β Wackermann, JiΕΓ (2003)
- Videotaped Experiments on Telephone Telepathy β Sheldrake, Rupert (2003)
Same Research Program
- Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence: The Case of Non-Local Perception, a Classical and Bayesian Review of Evidences β Tressoldi, Patrizio E (2011)
- EEG Correlates of Social Interaction at Distance β Giroldini, William (2016)
- Brain-to-Brain (Mind-to-Mind) Interaction at Distance: A Confirmatory Study β Tressoldi, Patrizio E (2014)
Also by these authors
Meta-Analysis of Free-Response Studies 2009-2018: Assessing the Noise-Reduction Model Ten Years On
On the Correspondence Between Dream Content and Target Material Under Laboratory Conditions: A Meta-Analysis of Dream-ESP Studies, 1966-2016
Feeling the Future: A Meta-Analysis of 90 Experiments on the Anomalous Anticipation of Random Future Events
More in Telepathy
Telecommunication Telepathy: A Meta-Analysis
Rethinking Communication and Consciousness: Lessons from The Telepathy Tapes Podcast
Who's Calling? Evaluating the Accuracy of Guessing Who Is on the Phone
A Comparison of Four New Automated Telephone Telepathy Tests
Detecting Telepathy: A Meta-Analysis for Extrasensory Perception Experiments in Last 20 Years
π Cite this paper
Tressoldi, Patrizio E, Massaccesi, Stefano, Martinelli, Massimiliano, Cappato, Sara (2011). Mental Connection at Distance: Useful for Solving Difficult Tasks?. Psychology (SCIRP). https://doi.org/10.4236/psych.2011.28130
@article{tressoldi_2011_mental_connection,
title = {Mental Connection at Distance: Useful for Solving Difficult Tasks?},
author = {Tressoldi, Patrizio E and Massaccesi, Stefano and Martinelli, Massimiliano and Cappato, Sara},
year = {2011},
journal = {Psychology (SCIRP)},
doi = {10.4236/psych.2011.28130},
}