Brain-to-Brain (Mind-to-Mind) Interaction at Distance: A Confirmatory Study
📄 Original study ↗Plain English Summary
Can two meditators communicate brain-to-brain from 190 km apart? This pre-registered study said yes — a machine learning classifier (SVM, a pattern-detection algorithm) found a 78% match between what a 'sender' saw and the 'receiver's' brain waves. The statistical confidence was enormous. But here's the twist: when researchers checked whether the effect was specific to actual pairs versus random pairings, it mostly vanished. Even more damning, a reviewer reanalyzed the open data and showed the headline result was an artifact — the algorithm was fooled by natural rhythmic patterns in EEG signals (temporal autocorrelations), not telepathy. A fascinating case study in how sophisticated-looking analysis can generate impressive but hollow results.
Research Notes
Important for the library's methodology debate: a transparently peer-reviewed EEG telepathy study whose open data and published reviewer reanalysis expose how SVM classification can produce spurious 'brain-to-brain' effects. Extends Tressoldi's pilot and connects to the generalized quantum theory framework (von Lucadou, Walach, Atmanspacher).
Pre-registered confirmatory study testing whether EEG activity of a distant 'receiver' can reflect the stimulus sequence (silence/signal) delivered to a paired 'sender' ~190 km away. Seven experienced meditators served as both senders and receivers across 20 sessions. An SVM classifier detected 78.4% coincidences (BF=390,625) between stimulus protocol and receiver EEG, and significant alpha-band (r=0.37) and gamma-band (r=0.24) correlations were observed between pairs. However, a stricter cross-participant analysis reduced positive results to only 4 of 20 pairs, and specificity controls showed similar correlations for unpaired participants. Reviewer reanalysis demonstrated the main SVM result was an analytical artifact caused by temporal autocorrelations in EEG data.
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Cites
- Synchronistic Phenomena as Entanglement Correlations in Generalized Quantum Theory — von Lucadou, Walter (2007)
- Weak Quantum Theory: Complementarity and Entanglement in Physics and Beyond — Atmanspacher, Harald (2002)
- Parapsychological Phenomena as Examples of Generalized Nonlocal Correlations—A Theoretical Framework — Walach, Harald (2014)
- Why Psychologists Must Change the Way They Analyze Their Data: The Case of Psi — Wagenmakers, Eric-Jan (2011)
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📋 Cite this paper
Tressoldi, Patrizio E, Pederzoli, Luciano, Bilucaglia, Marco, Caini, Patrizio, Fedele, Pasquale, Ferrini, Alessandro, Melloni, Simone, Richeldi, Diana, Richeldi, Florentina, Accardo, Agostino (2014). Brain-to-Brain (Mind-to-Mind) Interaction at Distance: A Confirmatory Study. F1000Research. https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.4336.3
@article{tressoldi_2014_eeg_distant,
title = {Brain-to-Brain (Mind-to-Mind) Interaction at Distance: A Confirmatory Study},
author = {Tressoldi, Patrizio E and Pederzoli, Luciano and Bilucaglia, Marco and Caini, Patrizio and Fedele, Pasquale and Ferrini, Alessandro and Melloni, Simone and Richeldi, Diana and Richeldi, Florentina and Accardo, Agostino},
year = {2014},
journal = {F1000Research},
doi = {10.12688/f1000research.4336.3},
}