Psi, perception without awareness and False Recognition

Abstract

This article describes 2 experiments aimed at bringing comparisons between perception without awareness (PWA) and psi up to date. Experiment la is a replication of an established effect in the field of PWA. Participants ( aged 17-39 yrs) were presented with a list of nouns before taking part in an old/new recognition test. If a new test word was preceded by a biasing stimulus consisting of the same word for 50 ms, participants tended to classify the new word as old. This is known as the false recognition effect. Experiment lb attempted to obtain a similar effect using psi as a biasing stimulus. Random new words were displayed to a sender, who attempted to induce false recognition in the receiver by influencing them to respond old. No significant effect was found, although a nonsignificant gender interaction was observed. Results are discussed and future directions are suggested.