ENHANCING HUMAN PERFORMANCE; AN EVALUATION OF 'NEW AGE' TECHNIQUES CONSIDERED BY THE U.S. ARMY

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• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 14, 1998
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• Publication Date: March 1, 1990
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General. Article
ENHANCING HUMAN
PERFORMANCE:
An Evaluation of "New Age"
Techniques Considered by the
U.S. Army
by John A. Swets and Robert A. Bjork
Unconventional techniques considered by the United States
Army for enhancing human performance were reviewed during
a two-year study by a committee of the National Research
Council. Little or no scientific evidence was found to support
the effectiveness of several, including neurolinguistic program-
!^dng in interpersonal influence and such paranormal tech-
4ues as remote viewing and psychokinesis. Mixed results
were seen to characterize other techniques, for example, group-
cohesion procedures. Further study was suggested for a few,
including mental practice of motor skills. Guidelines requested
rofthe committee for future army evaluation of enhancement
techniques stressed the need for, and the conduct of, both lab-
orotor, and field research. The committee recommended fur-
consideration of mainstream research in the behavioral
'sciences as a basis for effective performance enhancements.
Five years ago the Army Research Institute (ARI)
"led the National Research Council to assess a field of
techniques designed to enhance human performance. As
class, these techniques are extraordinary in that they
were developed outside of mainstream research in the
behavioral sciences and are accompanied by strong
i elms for high effectiveness. The ARI wanted a commit-
tee to examine the potential of certain specified tech-
~ ueS, to recommend appropriate criteria for evaluating
ch techniques, and, where possible, to specify the re-
1 search necessary to advance understanding of perfor-
mane enhancements in areas of behavior related to the
PrOPOSed techniques. In pursuing this line of investiga-
v n' the ARI was reacting to broad and substantial ad-
qt hU y in the army of trying to gain large enhancements
elan performance by any conceivable means.
arnlys by RI,
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!?113a -WK and Newman, Inc., 10 Moulton Street, Cambridge, MA
Cal;fom0! t' iaRobert A . Bjorrl DDe 0p24 ment of Psychology, University of
mental states, stress reduction, interpersonal influence,
group cohesion, and certain parapsychological pro-
cesses. More specifically, the army was considering the
possibilities that learning could take place during sleep,
that learning might be accelerated via packaged programs
designed for that purpose, and that motor skills might be
enhanced by guided imagery, mental practice, visual con-
centration, and biofeedback. Further, it wished to pursue
the possibility that mental states could be altered by self-
induced hypnotism, meditation, focused concentration,
or the integration of activity in the brain's hemispheres,
in order to promote periods of peak performance. The
army was also interested in whether biofeedback and
methods that purport to alter mental states might be use-
ful in managing stress. Certain aspects of interpersonal
and group processes were under examination as well,
including whether group cohesion, which might be fos-
tered by keeping army units intact, enhances group and
individual performance. Finally, the army had an interest
in such parapsychological processes as remote viewing
and psychokinesis, or mind over matter, especially men-
tal influence on the functioning of remote machines.
It may at first seem strange that anyone in the army
was interested in the panoply of behavioral processes and
techniques that characterized the countercultural human-
potential movement of the 1960s. However, in the 1980s
advocates of such techniques have had success with an
approach that is more entrepreneurial than ideological.
Moreover, the techniques are presented less as related to
general well-being and more as related to specific tasks,
such as marksmanship, second-language learning, and
sleep inducement. The army is not alone in this interest:
Private industry and the general public have also given
much attention to these New Age techniques in commer-
cially available programs of general training and self help.
The army's interest in extending human abilities through
parapsychological processes originated primarily in intel-
ligence circles rather than in training circles, but para-
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 Enhancing Human Performance
psychology soon became a bedfellow of the unconven-
tional training techniques in the army.
FORMATION OF THE NRC COMMITTEE
In conversations between Edgar M. Johnson, techni-
cal director of ARI, and David A. Goslin, then executive
director of the Commission on Behavioral and Social Sci-
ences and Education (CBASSE) of the NRC, and in a
formal letter request, it was indicated that the ARI lead-
ership wanted help, not only to reduce broad pressures
on it that had recently intensified, but also with an im-
portant national problem of interest to private industry
and the public as well as the m- itar. CBASSE members
who evaluated this request included psychologists Wil-
liam K. Estes, Ira J. Hirsh, Lauren Resnick, and Stanley
Schachter. In response to the request, CBASSE moved
to set up a committee especially for the purpose, with
suggestions for particular kinds of expertise also from
other advisers including psychologists Robert Boruch,
Wendell R. Garner, Bert F. Green, and Gardner Lindzey.
The first author of this article was enlisted as committee
chair and, together with Goslin, he developed the final
recommendations for membership that were endorsed by
the commission.' Daniel Druckman was appointed as the
committee's study director.
imal education as well as short terms of auty, lilt,
diers who possess the personal and social skills needed, 4
battle as well as the technical skills needed to operatea
maintain complex equipment. It could understand ur
to look beyond slow, narrow, and insufficiently target
mainstream research on human performance to enhan~,
ments that could come from elsewhere. And it was await
that those in the army responsible for training and tech
nique evaluation would face difficulties in responding
strong enhancement claims (both by army officers ,
outside vendors) for diverse and far-ranging techniques
The committee agreed that the general problem deserve
objective and thorough examination and was willing
initiate such a study.
Subcommittees were formed on various facets of
problem, including evaluation issues, sleep learning,
celerated learning, guided imagery, biofeedback, split
brain effects, stress management, cohesion, influen,,
and parapsychology. The committee met as a whole sq
times in 2 years, In whole or part made ten site visits
invited twenty or so briefings, and commissioned tt'
background review papers.2 It met twice with a
source Advisory Group of army officers formed for t
purpose.3
ARMY BACKGROUND
The Committee on Techniques for the Enhancement
of Human Performance (henceforth, the committee) met
first in late July 1985. ARI's Johnson along with George
Lawrence, its liaison to the committee, arranged for sev-
eral speakers at the first meeting, who informed and
sometimes perplexed the members. A few speakers de-
scribed single techniques, others waxed enthusiastic
about the full range of them, and one, a retired general,
spoke eloquently of his own extensive psychokinetic
powers.
General Maxwell R. Thurman was the motivational
speaker at dinner the first evening. His graphs demon-
strated that in terms of recruits' test scores, the army was
doing increasingly better, and also better compared to the
other services. His review of the traditional and growing
demands placed on soldiers, however, made clear that
these demands continued to outstrip abilities by a large
margin.
THE COMMITTEE'S APPROACH
The committee could easily imagine the great difficul-
ties faced in converting recruits, most of them with min-
- 1. The committee consisted of John A. Swets, chair, Robert A.
Bjork, Thomas D. Cook, Gerald C. Davison, Lloyd G. Humphreys,
Ray Hyman, Daniel M. Landers, Sandra A. Mobley, Lyman W. Porter,
Michael I. Posner, Walter Schneider, Jerome E. Singer, Sally P.
Springer, and Richard F. Thompson.
The army's interest in parapsychology is reported
be longstanding, including, for example, sponsorship 0
ESP research by J.B. Rhine in the early 1950s. Remote
viewing experiments were conducted for the army by tlk
Stanford Research Institute in the 1970s. A military cop
cern has been that the Soviets have been active in ilk
development of psychic abilities, including the ability to
affect the behavior of others through mental telepathy.,,
proposal developed in the army for the First Earth ft .
talion envisioned warrior monks with a range of parapsy
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2. Ten commissioned papers, available from the National Academ
Press, are these: Eric Eich, Learning during sleep; Robert E. Slavic,'
Principles of effective instruction; Deborah L. Feltz, Daniel It
Landers, and Betsy J. Becker, A revised meta-analysis of the meow.
practice literature on motor skill learning; Seymour Levine, Stressad'performance; Raymond W. Novaco, Stress reduction and the militant
Dean G. Pruitt, Jennifer Crocker, and Deborah Hanes, Matching at,
other influence strategies; Boaz Tamir and Gideon Kunda, Culture ad
military performance; James E. Alcock, A comprehensive reviewd,
major empirical studies in parapsychology involving random event gta`
erators and remote viewing; Monica J. Harris and Robert Rosenthal
Interpersonal expectancy effects and human performance reseaict
Dale Griffin, Intuitive judgment and the evaluation of evidence.
M
3. The Resource Advisory Group consisted of general officers s
held the positions of Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, Deputy Chid
of Staff for Intelligence, Director of Army Research and Technolop"
Commander of the Soldier Support Center, and Commander, Media=
Research and Development Command and as well the Assistant St
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