tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35675147.post476509652685221012..comments2024-01-14T02:32:38.226-05:00Comments on Public Parapsychology: Guest Blog: Using Brain Imaging as a Direct Test for PsiAnnalisa Ventolahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10604572323799521346noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35675147.post-32332248553411866352008-07-22T04:37:00.000-04:002008-07-22T04:37:00.000-04:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35675147.post-68346468564048210142008-02-19T07:15:00.000-05:002008-02-19T07:15:00.000-05:00"Until psi proponents can elucidate how thoughts g..."Until psi proponents can elucidate how thoughts generated by neurons in the sender’s brain can pass through the skull and into the brain of the receiver, skepticism [that psi exists] is the appropriate response.."<BR/><BR/>That suggests it is necessary to have a theory to explain a phenomenon before we can acknowledge that the phenomenon happens.<BR/><BR/>Moreover, Shermer assumes that thoughts are "generated" by neurons. This is like saying turn signals are generated by the turn signal switch, and the honk is generated by a horn.<BR/><BR/>We haven't looked into the possibility that the car has a driver who operates these signals, so we believe the car generates them.<BR/><BR/>What is more likely is that thoughts are generated by the sender, who is not trapped in a skull, thus there is no need for thoughts to pass through media.<BR/><BR/>We would do better to investigate the properties of the sender and receiver rather than dismiss psi because we have no theory by which it could comply with inapplicable models.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14119432027286325185noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35675147.post-36627837016142539072008-02-12T18:12:00.000-05:002008-02-12T18:12:00.000-05:00It's an interesting study and I'm glad it was done...It's an interesting study and I'm glad it was done. However, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. <BR/><BR/>Plenty of MRI studies have obtained null results. But an fMRI study involving vision failing to confirm its hypotheses does not establish that vision does not exist.Phronkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13130514499521837002noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35675147.post-68850387436392497712008-02-12T13:16:00.000-05:002008-02-12T13:16:00.000-05:00Are we sure that the procedure adopted to obtain a...Are we sure that the procedure adopted to obtain a telephatic trasmission of information was correct? "Senders viewed each stimulus for 10–22 sec, depending upon timing of the receivers’ stimulus presentations. The investigator asked senders to ‘‘influence the receiver’’ with the psi stimulus, adopt a ‘‘playful’’ attitude.<BR/>The receivers had between 2 and 6 sec to respond depending upon the trial, and their responses did not advance the script. Following this forced-choice response, participants were presented with the psi stimulus (1-sec duration) and feedback (for other details see the paper).<BR/>After hundreds of experiments to test telepathic trasmission of information (i.e. those using ganzfeld) it is clear that the procedure used by Moulton & Kosslyn has the characteristics to do not obtain any behavioral result and consequentely any neurophysiological signalPatriziohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11464332033670357921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35675147.post-74509547600730814212008-02-12T13:15:00.002-05:002008-02-12T13:15:00.002-05:00Are we sure that the procedure adopted to obtain a...Are we sure that the procedure adopted to obtain a telephatic trasmission of information was correct? "Senders viewed each stimulus for 10–22 sec, depending upon timing of the receivers’ stimulus presentations. The investigator asked senders to ‘‘influence the receiver’’ with the psi stimulus, adopt a ‘‘playful’’ attitude.<BR/>The receivers had between 2 and 6 sec to respond depending upon the trial, and their responses did not advance the script. Following this forced-choice response, participants were presented with the psi stimulus (1-sec duration) and feedback (for other details see the paper).<BR/>After hundreds of experiments to test telepathic trasmission of information (i.e. those using ganzfeld) it is clear that the procedure used by Moulton & Kosslyn has the characteristics to do not obtain any behavioral result and consequentely any neurophysiological signalPatriziohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11464332033670357921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35675147.post-31540680793992536122008-02-12T13:15:00.001-05:002008-02-12T13:15:00.001-05:00Are we sure that the procedure adopted to obtain a...Are we sure that the procedure adopted to obtain a telephatic trasmission of information was correct? "Senders viewed each stimulus for 10–22 sec, depending upon timing of the receivers’ stimulus presentations. The investigator asked senders to ‘‘influence the receiver’’ with the psi stimulus, adopt a ‘‘playful’’ attitude.<BR/>The receivers had between 2 and 6 sec to respond depending upon the trial, and their responses did not advance the script. Following this forced-choice response, participants were presented with the psi stimulus (1-sec duration) and feedback (for other details see the paper).<BR/>After hundreds of experiments to test telepathic trasmission of information (i.e. those using ganzfeld) it is clear that the procedure used by Moulton & Kosslyn has the characteristics to do not obtain any behavioral result and consequentely any neurophysiological signalPatriziohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11464332033670357921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35675147.post-79266013694774683982008-02-12T13:15:00.000-05:002008-02-12T13:15:00.000-05:00Are we sure that the procedure adopted to obtain a...Are we sure that the procedure adopted to obtain a telephatic trasmission of information was correct? "Senders viewed each stimulus for 10–22 sec, depending upon timing of the receivers’ stimulus presentations. The investigator asked senders to ‘‘influence the receiver’’ with the psi stimulus, adopt a ‘‘playful’’ attitude.<BR/>The receivers had between 2 and 6 sec to respond depending upon the trial, and their responses did not advance the script. Following this forced-choice response, participants were presented with the psi stimulus (1-sec duration) and feedback (for other details see the paper).<BR/>After hundreds of experiments to test telepathic trasmission of information (i.e. those using ganzfeld) it is clear that the procedure used by Moulton & Kosslyn has the characteristics to do not obtain any behavioral result and consequentely any neurophysiological signalPatriziohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11464332033670357921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35675147.post-75122501771658704162008-01-29T08:30:00.000-05:002008-01-29T08:30:00.000-05:00Telepathy experiments are but one way to search fo...Telepathy experiments are but one way to search for "extraordinary" event generation, viv-a-vis the brain. "Star performers" like www.gillismagic.com/sisue.html (and others), could expand the knowledge of functional neuroanatomy, should people get past the "boggle factor" of acceptance.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35675147.post-63843150763021079532008-01-25T16:01:00.000-05:002008-01-25T16:01:00.000-05:00Interesting post and follow-ups. Whatever short-co...Interesting post and follow-ups. Whatever short-comings fMRI imaging may or may not have when it comes to investigating psi, at least it can be said that no ping-pong balls were hurt or injured during the course of the experiment. Wolfgang Metzger must be be spinning in his grave... ;)w.e.cousinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09106267013763653154noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35675147.post-91730048699744117172008-01-24T22:50:00.000-05:002008-01-24T22:50:00.000-05:00The "subliminal" psychic response if there was one...The "subliminal" psychic response if there was one doesn't need to have been entirely or at all visual - instead a knowing of some kind or an intuition. Thus there would not be any suppression expected.<BR/><BR/>That this experiment didn't show positive results shows nothing more nor less than that in one experimental series with this experimental design and selected participants psi was not demonstrated, and it failed to confirm McDonough and Warren's prediction that their positive results with the wave structure of ERPs might also be detectable using fMRI imaging. <BR/><BR/>I agree with Bryan Williams that fMRI imaging is probably not a good method for such investigation, because of its nature in showing simple activity or inactivity of large masses of neurons (rather than fine patterns of electrical potential in time and amplitude). As Bryan stated, it is difficult to tell whether the study result was meaningful or not. To conclude that the study constitutes strong evidence against ESP goes much farther than the results warrant, except in the minds of staunch psi skeptics looking for any evidence to dismiss it. In particular because one negative study can't invalidate hundreds of other positive experimental studies with different designs and participants, and the meta-analyses based on them.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17951644147929348090noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35675147.post-23841118747715539192008-01-24T09:35:00.000-05:002008-01-24T09:35:00.000-05:00Greetings,Our design does not assume, as you asser...Greetings,<BR/><BR/>Our design does not assume, as you assert, that a psi stimulus is processed differently than a sensory stimulus; if anything, it assumes just the opposite: that psi is comparable to sensory perception. If psi exists and is processed by sensory cortices, then the psi stimuli in our experiment, as compared to the non-psi stimuli, should have evoked brain activation that was similar in anatomy but smaller in magnitude. This would be a psi analog of a well-established effect in cognitive neuroscience: repetition suppression (see p. 183 of our article). If an individual is subliminally exposed to a visual stimulus, this subliminal exposure suppresses their subsequent response to that stimuli. In our experiment, we replaced that initial subliminal presentation with a psi presentation, to see whether it dampened the neural response in a similar fashion.<BR/><BR/>Hope this clarifies things.<BR/><BR/>Best,<BR/>SamSam Moultonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06954969594703988326noreply@blogger.com