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Bem

The Parapsychological Association Convention 2004 431

PRECOGNITIVE AVOIDANCE AND PRECOGNITIVE DJ VU

Daryl J. BemCornell University, New York

At last years PA convention, I reported on a phenomenon called Precognitive Habituation (PH; Bem,

2003), a phenomenon that emerged from a search for a straightforward laboratory demonstration of psi that

could: (a) be observed using participants from the general population; (b) be conducted with no

instrumentation beyond a desktop computer; (c) be evaluated by simple statistical tests; and, (d) be

replicated by any competent experimenter, including a skeptical one.

On each trial of the PH procedure, the participant is shown a pair of negatively arousing or positively

arousing (erotic) photographs on a computer screen and asked to indicate which picture of the pair he or

she prefers. The computer then randomly selects one of the two pictures to serve as the habituation target

and displays it subliminally several times. If the participant prefers the picture subsequently designated asthe target, the trial is defined as a hit. Accordingly, the hit rate expected by chance is 50%.

The PH hypothesis is that the repeated exposures of the target can reach back in time to diminish the

arousal it would otherwise produce, thereby rendering negatively arousing targets less negative and positively

arousing targets less positive. Because the two pictures in each pair are matched for valence and arousal,

participants are predicted to prefer the target-to-be on trials with negatively arousing pictures and the non-

target on trials with positively arousing pictures. Preferences on trials with non-arousing (low-affect)

pictures were not expected to differ from chance.

More than 400 men and women participated in 9 variations of the PH experiment, including an

independent replication by a skeptical investigator. Collectively the studies provided strong support for the

two predicted effects. Across the six basic studies, the hit rate was significantly above 50% on negative trials

(52.6%, t(259) = 3.17, p = .0008) and significantly below 50% on erotic trials (48.0%, t(149) = -1.88, p =

.031). Additional replications are currently in progress at several laboratories around the world.Currently I am using a similar protocol to explore two new precognitive effects: Precognitive Avoidance

(PA) and Precognitive Dj vu (PDV).

METHOD

The Precognitive Avoidance Procedure

On each trial of the Precognitive Avoidance procedure, the participant is again shown two matched

pictures and asked to indicate which picture he or she prefers. In this protocol, however, all the pictures are

low-affect pictures. The computer then randomly selects one of the two pictures to serve as the trigger for a

full-screen exposure of a highly arousing picture; the other picture of the pair produces only a blank screen.If the participant selects the picture that produces the arousing picture, the trial is designated a hit. The

initial PA hypotheses were that participants will selectively avoid exposing themselves to the negatively

arousing pictures and, perhaps, selectively expose themselves to the positively arousing pictures. In other

words, the hit rate will be significantly less than 50% for negative trials and (possibly) significantly greater

than 50% for positive trials.

At this point, it appears that there are systematic individual differences: Those high in anxiety show the

predicted effects on the negative trials, but those high in sensation seeking show the reverse effect,

significantly exposing themselves to the negatively arousing images. Erotic and positive (nonerotic) pictures

are not yet showing any systematic patterns. At the moment, there are too few sessions to be confident of

these patterns, but there does appear to be precognitive responding with this protocol.

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Precognitive avoidance and precognitive dj vu

Proceedings of Presented Papers432

The Precognitive Dj vu Procedure

The Precognitive Dj vu experiment is disguised as a test of subconscious eyewitness identification: In

a police lineup, eyewitness are often asked to identify a person whom they have seen only briefly or evenonly subconsciously. In this study, you will be shown pictures subliminally (i.e., subconsciously) and asked to

identify them when they are paired with pictures you have not seen. On each trial, the participant sees

several subliminal flashes and is then shown two matched pictures and asked to select the one which seems

more familiar. Unknown to the participants, they are actually exposed to the randomly selected target

picture afterrather than before they make their selection. The PDV hypothesis is that participants will select

as more familiar those pictures they are about to see: Precognitive Dj vu.

A pilot version of this procedure was administered to 20 participants in a weekend conference at the

Institute of Noetic Sciences. They showed a significant PDV effect, especially those who were high on the

personality trait of Openness to Experience. Accordingly, the computer now administers a brief version of

this scale before the experimental trials begin. Participants in this pilot experiment knew it was a test of psi,

that the computer-selected picture would flash after their selection. We are currently testing both the

disguised and the non-disguised versions of this protocol.The current version of the computer program also administers a test of left vs right brain functioning.

Research on eyewitness identification has demonstrated that those who describe their selection process in

global, gestalt terms (His face just seemed to pop out at me.) are more accurate in their identifications

than those who describe their selection process in more analytic terms (I remembered that he had bushy

eyebrows). This is not surprising because facial recognition is generally considered to be a right-brained

function. To explore this further, 20 of the 40 trials use pictures of human faces, 10 use pictures of animals,

and 10 use pictures of buildings or landscapes.

I developed this protocol, in part, because several researchers who expressed an interest in replicating

the Precognitive Habituation experiment were not comfortable using the negative or the erotic pictures with

their subject populations; some who were located at colleges or universities doubted that they could get the

protocol past their Internal Review Boards. The PDV protocol avoids this problem by using only low-affectpictures.

REFERENCES

Bem, D. J. (2003). Precognitive Habituation: Replicable Evidence for a Process of Anomalous Cognition. In: S. Wilson

(Chair), Proceedings of Presented Papers. from the Forty-sixth Annual Convention of the Parapsychological Association,

2003 (pp. 6-20), Vancouver, Canada.

Address for correspondence: Daryl J. Bem,

Psychology Department, Uris Hall, Cornell University,Ithaca, NY 14853-7601, USA.

E-mail: d.bem@cornell.edu