PERCEPTUAL AUGMENTATION TECHNIQUES. PROGRESS REPORT NO. 1.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: STARGATE
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96-00791R000200040003-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 47
• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 14, 2003
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: March 12, 1974
• Content Type: REPORT

Progress Report No. 1
Covering the Period 28 January to 1 March 1974
Stanford Research Institute Project .3183
PERCEPTUAL AUGMENTATION TECHNIQUES
by
Harold E. Puthoff
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The purpose of the program is to determine the characteristics of
those perceptual modalities through which individuals obtain information
about their environment, wherein such information is not presented to
any known sense.
The program is divided into two categories of investigation of
approximately equal effort, applied research and basic research. The
purpose of the applied research effort is to explore experimentally
the potential for applications of perceptual abilities of interest,
with special attention given to accuracy and reliability. The purpose
of the basic research effort is to identify the characteristics of
individuals possessing such abilities, and to identify neurophysiological
correlates and basic mechanisms involved in such functioning.
II PROGRESS DURING THE REPORTING PERIOD
A. Applied Research
1. Remote Viewing
A number of efforts were begun with respect to obtaining
further information concerning remote viewing phenomena. First, an
experiment has been designed in consultation with SRI psychologists
which will yield precise statistical data as to discrimination ability.
Ten sites known to the subject are to be visited in random sequence by a
target demarcation team. The subject must then make a choice as to
which site is being visited, in addition to providing descriptive material
for content analysis.
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B. Basic Research
1. Testing Program
During the first month of this program, the Wechsler Adult
Intelligence Scale (WAIS) instrument was administered by
to three subjects screened in other
programs as being gifted in the area of paranormal perception. They are
Mr. Patrick H. Price, screened for remote viewing ability, Mrs. Hella Hammid,
screened for EEG correlates to remote stimuli, and Mr. Duane Elgin,
screened for high scoring response to a random target generator. Further
in-depth interviewing of the first two subjects was carried out by-
technical representatives when completed.
On the basis of discussion with technical representative,
SRI representatives have consulted with a number of
Bay Area neurophysiologists concerning administration of the Halstead-
Reitan (H-R) Neuropsychology Test Battery. Those contacted include
Dr. Karl Pribram of the Stanford Medical School, Dr. Robert Ornstein
of the Langley-Porter Neuropsychiatric Clinic, and Dr. Donald Lim of
the Veteran's Administration Hospital in Palo Alto. To date satisfactory
arrangements for administration of the H-R instrument have not yet been
made, as only the-latter facility has personnel experienced in its
administration, but not ordinarily available for subcontracted consulting.
The three individuals named above have, however, agreed to help locate
an appropriate individual or facility to carry out such testing so no
difficulty is anticipated in meeting this requirement.
SG1D
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A measure of the visual acuity of one subject (P.P.) was
obtained utilizing one of the instruments available in the optics
group of the Electronics and Bioengineering Laboratory of SRI. The
measurement method involves forced-choice discrimination on the part of
the subject between alternate zero and finite-contrast grating images,
for each of a number of spatial-frequency gratings. (See Appendix 11.)
The system, which is automated, tracks and records the subject's
forced-choice responses to yield a curve of threshold (75% correct choice)
contrast sensitivity as a function of spatial frequency. As might be
expected, higher contrast is required at the low and high frequency
tails of the distribution, as compared with the middle range, to
discriminate between grating and uniform images.. The purpose of the
test with regard to our program was to determine whether a subject
possessing an unusual ability to view remote stimuli also possessed an
unusual visual acuity response in a threshold-determining instrument,
either because of unusual acuity in the ordinary sense, or through the
use of an extraordinary ability to discriminate between a target and a
blank under-co nditions of vanishingly-small information content.
The resultant curve lay within the range of expected human
variation indicating no unusual response activity.
2. Measurement Program
A 10-channel polygraph facility under the direction of
Dr. Jerry Lukas of the Sensory Sciences Research Center has been brought
into the program.and certain functions tailored to our specification.
The facility will be used initially to monitor GSR, blood flow
(plethysmograph), and EEG activity of subjects carrying out tasks
involving perception of remote stimuli. For our purposes, the display
of raw data has been augmented by a computer program which has'been
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written and debugged to provide on-line 5-second averages of EEG activity
in the theta, alpha, and beta bands. Discussions are now in progress
on experimental protocols to be employed in the utilization of this
facility.
EEG data taken prior to this program, but unanalyzed, has been
subjected to analysis in an effort to determine whether a particular
protocol was a viable instrument for defining correlates of remote
perception. The description of the experiment and the results of the
analysis is given in the EEG section of a paper submitted for publication
to Nature, given here as Appendix I.
In an effort to determine the effects of motivation on
paranormal functioning, the following test procedure has been initiated.
One subject (P.P.) has completed 7075 trials on guessing the state of a
four-stage electronic random target generator without monetary reward
being associated with the scoring, and is now repeating the series with
a monetary reward scaled to scoring. Upon completion of the series,
the results will be analyzed to determine whether the difference between
scoring under the two conditions is significant. The reward system,
shown in Table 1, is scaled linearly with difficulty.
REWARD SYSTEM FOR SCORING ON 25-TRIAL RUN, P=1/4 PER TRIAL
Nr. hits/25-trial run,N Prob. of at least N hits
Reward
10
0.071
$ 1
11
0.030
2
12
0.010
5
13
0.0034
12
14
0.00092
35
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1. Target pictures and responses drawn by Uri Geller under shielded
2. Computer drawings and responses drawn by Uri Geller.
a. Computer drawing stored on video display
b. Computer drawing stored in computer memory only
c. Computer drawing stored on video display with zero intensity
3. Occipital EEG spectra, 0 to 20 Hz, for one subject (H.H.) acting as
receiver, showing amplitude changes in the 9 - 11 Hz band as a
function of strobe frequency. Three cases: 0, 6, and 16 flashes per
second (12 trial averages).
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INTRODUCTION
In this paper we present results of experiments suggesting the
existence of one or more perceptual modalities through which individuals
obtain information about their environment, wherein this information is
not presented to any known sense. Such perceptual abilities are often
considered to be paranormal. The literature in the field 1-3 coupled with
our own observations have led us to conclude that such abilities can be
studied under laboratory conditions.
The phenomena we have investigated most extensively pertain to the
ability of certain individuals to describe graphical material or remote
scenes shielded against ordinary perception. In addition, we also performed
pilot studies to determine if electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings
might indicate perception of remote happenings even in the absence of
correct overt responses.
In these experiments we concentrated on what we considered to be our
primary responsibility--namely, to resolve under conditions as unambiguous
as possible the basic issue of whether a certain class of paranormal
perception phenomena exists. Therefore, we conducted our experiments with
sufficient control, utilizing visual, acoustic, and electrical shielding,
to ensure that all conventional paths of sensory input were blocked. At
all times we were vigilant in the design of our experiments to take
measures to prevent sensory leakage and to prevent deception, whether
intentional or unintentional, on the part of our subjects.
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The overall goal of our research program is the determination of the
laws underlying these phenomena. That is, our goal is not just to catalog
interesting events, but rather to uncover patterns of cause-effect rela-
tionships that lend themselves to analysis and hypothesis in the forms
with which we are familiar in scientific study. The results presented
here constitute a first step toward that goal, in that we have established
under known conditions a data base from which departures as a function of
physical and psychological variables can be studied in future work.
in this paper we describe three related experiments which we consider
to represent a single ability exhibiting different rates of information
transmission. First, we conducted experiments with Mr. Uri Geller in
which we examined his ability, while located in an electrically shielded
room, to reproduce target pictures drawn by experimenters located at remote
locations. Second, we conducted double-blind experiments with two
individuals, Mr. Ingo Swann and Mr. Pat Price, in which we measured their
ability to describe remote outdoor scenes many miles from their physical
location. Finally, we conducted preliminary tests using electroencephalo-
grams (EEG), in which subjects were asked to perceive whether a remote
light was flashing, and to determine whether a subject could perceive the
presence of the light, even if only at a noncognitive level of awareness.
REMOTE PERCEPTION OF GRAPHIC MATERIAL
We describe here a series of experiments in paranormal perception
with a 27 year old Israeli subject, Uri Geller. In preliminary testing
Mr. Geller apparently demonstrated an ability to reproduce simple pictures
2
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in order to eliminate the possibility of pre-experiment target forcing,
Mr. Geller was kept ignorant as to the identity of the person selecting
the target and as to the method of target selection. Mr. Geller's task
was then to reproduce with pen on paper the line drawing being generated
by the experimenters at the target location. Following a period of effort
ranging from a few minutes to half an hour, Mr. Geller either passed
(when he did not feel confident) or indicated he was ready to submit a
drawing to the experimenters, in which case the drawing was collected
before Mr. Geller was permitted to see the target.
In order to prevent sensory cueing of the target information,
Experiments 1 through 10 were carried out using a shielded room in SRI's
facility for EEG research. The degree of acoustic and visual isolation
provided for this experiment is that afforded by a double-walled steel
room, locked by means of an inner and outer door, each of which is secured
with a refrigerator-type locking mechanism. The person inside the room
is continuously monitored by means of a one-way audio monitor. The
target picture was never discussed by the experimenters after the picture
was drawn or brought near the shielded room. In our detailed examination
of the shielded room and the protocol used in these experiments, no sensory
leakage has been found.
The conditions and results for the ten experiments carried out in the
shielded room are displayed in Table 1. As indicated in the Table, all
experiments, except Experiments 4 and 5, were conducted with Mr. Geller
closeted inside the shielded room. In Experiments 4 and 5, the procedure
was reversed--i.e., the target was located inside the shielded room, with
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(line drawings) which had been drawn and placed in opaque sealed envelopes
which Mr. Geller was not permitted to handle. However, since each of
the targets was known to at least one experimenter in the room with
Mr. Geller, it was not possible on the basis of the preliminary testing
to discriminate between Mr. Geller's direct perception of envelope contents
and perception via some mechanism involving the experimenters, whether
paranormal or subliminal.
Therefore, an experimental study was undertaken to examine the
phenomenon under conditions specifically designed to eliminate all
conventional information channels, overt or subliminal. This was accomplished
by separating Mr. Geller from both the target material and anyone knowledgeable
of the target material, as in the recent experiments by Musso and Granero.4
The first part of the study consisted of a series of thirteen separate
drawing experiments carried out over a seven day period. The thirteen-
experiment data set constitutes the entire set of consecutive experiments
carried out in the time available for the study, with no experiments deleted.
The protocol for the experiments was as follows: At the beginning
of the experiment either Mr. Geller or the experimenters entered a shielded
room so that from that time forward Mr. Geller was at all times visually,
acoustically, and electrically shielded from personnel and material at the
target location. Only following Mr. Geller's isolation from the experimenters
was- a target chosen and drawn, a procedure designed to eliminate pre-
experiment cueing. The method of target selection involved random
procedures, such as randomly opening a dictionary and selecting the first
word describing an object that could reasonably be drawn. Furthermore,
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Experiment
Date
Geller Location
Target Location
Target
Figure
1
8/4/73
Shielded room #1a
Adjacent room (4.1 m)b
Firecracker
la
2
8/4/73
Shielded room #1
Adjacent room (4.1 m)
Grapes
lb
3
8/5/73
Shielded room #1
Office (475 m)
Devil
4
8/5/73
Room adjacent to
Shielded room #1
Solar system
shielded room #1
(3.2 m)
8/6/73
Room adjacent to
Shielded room #1
Rabbit
No drawing
shielded room #1
(3.2 m)
6
8/7/73
Shielded room #1
Adjacent room (4.1 m)
Tree
No drawing
7
8/7/73
Shielded room #1
Adjacent room (4.1 m)
Envelope
No drawing
8
8/8/73
Shielded room #1
Remote room (6.75 m)
Camel
le
9
8/8/73
Shielded room #1
Adjacent room (4.1 m)
Bridge
if
10
8/8/73
Shielded room #1
Adjacent room (4.1 m)
Seagull
lg
11
8/9/73
Shielded room #2c
Computer (54 m)
Kite (computer CRT)
2a
12
8/10/73
Shielded room #2
Computer (54 m)
Church (computer
memory)
2b
13
8/10/73
Shielded room #2
Computer (54 m)
Arrow through heart
(computer CRT, zero
2c
intensity)
a EEG Facility shielded room (see text).
bPerceiver-target distances measured in meters.
cSRI Radio Systems Laboratory shielded room (see text).
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Mr. Goiter on the outside in an adjacent room. For those experiments in
which Mr. Geller was inside the shielded room, the target location was
in an adjacent room at a distance of about 4 meters, except for Experiments
3 and 8, in which the target locations were, respectively, an office at
a. distance of 475 meters and a room down the hall at a distance of about
7 meters.
In Experiment l,the object drawn on the basis of random dictionary
selection was a firecracker, shown in Fig. 1(a). Mr. Geller's immediate
verbal response via the audio monitor was that he saw "a cylinder with
noise coming out of it." He made two responses to the target, also shown
in Fig. 1(a).
In Experiment 2, the target--al.so chosen by random dictionary selection--
was a cluster of grapes. Mr. Geller said that he was quite certain that
lie had the picture. Both the target picture and Mr. Geller's response
have 24 grapes in the cluster (Fig. 1(b)).
In Experiment 3, Mr. Geller was locked in the shielded room with one
experimenter outside as a monitor while the target was drawn in another
building 475 meters away. The target, again randomly selected from the
dictionary, was a devil (Fig. 1(c)). Mr. Geller spent 30 minutes on his
drawing and expressed considerable difficulty in getting the target. The
results are interesting from the standpoint of possible insight into the
process that they provide. His drawings consisted of representations of
Biblical symbology, including the "Moses tablets," an apple with a worm,
a snake, and a concluding composite picture with the tablets on top of
the world and the trident outside. Of these only the trident corresponds
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