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Covert observation increases skin conductance in subjects unaware of when they are being observed: A replication
Abstract
This study measured the extent to which subjects were able to unconsciously detect another person covertly staring at them from a distance. A video camera was focused on the subject while a person in another room (the observer) concentrated on the image of the subject as displayed on a color monitor This procedure was used to preclude any direct sensory contact between the two participants; the subjects were unaware of when they were being observed. A microprocessor controlled the experiment, recording and averaging the skin conductance level (SCL) of the subject during a random sequence of 30-s periods in which the video monitor was either activated or shut off. There was a total of 16 periods of covert observation (monitor on) and 16 control periods (monitor off) per session. Thirty-nine subjects participated in a total of 48 experimental sessions. As pre dieted, SCL during the covert observation periods was significantly greater than during the control periods, (t(47) = 2.652, P <.005). Twenty-six subjects (66.7% of the total number) showed greater SCL during observation than during the control condition; only 13 subjects (33% of the total number) showed greater SCL in the covert observation condition than the control condition.
... In addition, the first study did not relate the findings of belief in remote staring and the evil-eye with relevant personality correlates, which could help explain the origins of such beliefs. Research has previously examined a variety of potential personality correlates with remote staring detection such as paranormal belief (Watt, Schlitz, Wiseman, & Radin, 2005;Williams, 1983;Wiseman & Schlitz, 1997; social avoidance and distress (Braud, et al., 1993b;Schlitz & LaBerge, 1997); the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (Braud et al., 1993b); shyness and perceived luckiness (Wiseman & Smith, 1994); and extraversion (Lobach & Bierman, 2004). However, this research examined personality correlates in the context of experimental testing of the phenomena as opposed to exploring the relationship between personality correlates and beliefs and experiences of this phenomenon. ...
The common experience of the feeling of being watched by another has been experimentally examined for over 100 years. However, little research has been conducted to investigate the belief in this phenomenon in detail or potential relationships to related personality measures. In two studies, sampling over 2,500 people and using a new measure, belief in remote staring detection was shown to decrease as barriers between the starer and staree increased. In addition, an exploratory factor analysis demonstrated that belief in remote staring detection is complex and is related to a sense of presence (collectively referred to here as paranormal perceptual awareness or PPA). It is also different from both extramission (i.e., something is emitted from the eye when one looks at something) and the belief in an "evil-eye" (i.e., one person can cause harm to another person just by looking at them). Both extramission and evil-eye beliefs are collectively defined here as eye-energy belief or EEB. Multivariate multiple regression analysis revealed that personality measures of self-consciousness, paranoia, and social anxiety significantly predicted both PPA and EEB. However, PPA belief implies more generalised awareness of one's social interactions, albeit interpreted through paranormal mechanisms, whereas EEB belief suggests greater concern regarding how another's gaze can impact oneself, particularly with negative connotations.
... The experiments that followed the same paradigm (Schlitz & LaBerge, 1997;Wiseman & Schlitz, 1997;1999;Wiseman & Smith, 1994;Wiseman, Smith, Freedman, Wasserman & Hurst, 1995) can be regarded as conceptual replications of Braud's experiments. Most of them also revealed significant results by measuring the extent of activation during staring periods but the way the EDA was measured showed some shortcomings and thus leaves some doubt about the validity of the results (Schmidt & Walach, 2000). ...
Findings in parapsychology suggest an effect of distant intentionality. Two laboratory set-ups explored this topic by measuring the effect of a distant intention on psychophysiological variables. The DMILS (direct mental interaction in living systems) experiments investigate the effect of various intentions on the electrodermal activity (EDA) of a remote subject. The "Remote Staring" experiments examine whether gazing by an observer (starer) covaries with the electrodermal activity of the person being observed (staree). In two meta-analyses (Schmidt, Schneider, Utts & Walach, 2004) it became obvious that the remote staring studies had a lower overall quality than the DMILS studies. While there are some high quality DMILS studies (score over 90%) the highest quality in Remote Staring studies is 71%. Thus there is a lack in studies with good methodology to assess the remote staring paradigm. We conducted a remote staring study that intended to overcome methodological shortcomings of earlier studies Fifty participants were invited to take part as starees. After completing questionnaires on mindfulness, mood, personality and paranormal belief they rested in a comfortable position in front of a video camera while their EDA was continuously monitored. The experimenter also acted as the starer and either observed or did not observe the participant through a closed circuit television system according to a random schedule. EDA during stare and non-stare epochs was compared for significant differences. In addition to this basic (replication) set-up two new hypotheses were tested. The participant had the possibility to press a button whenever s/he feels stared at. This added a conscious response variable without engaging into the disadvantages of the standard conscious guessing paradigm (guessing strategies, response bias etc). Furthermore the distraction of the starer's intention during non-stare epochs was varied. In one condition s/he was mentally occupied by a cognitive task, in the other s/he was just told not to stare (standard condition). We hypothesized that the distraction from the target in the standard condition was too weak to avoid an unwanted intentional effect in the staree. Overall we did not find any staring effect at all, not in the EDA data and not in the 'conscious' open response situation. Thus the experiment failed in demonstrating any Psi effect.
... At randomly determined periods (to which the participant is blind) the experimenter either stares at the participant's image on the CCTV monitor, or looks away so that the image cannot be seen. In earlier research conducted by Schlitz (e.g., Schlitz & Laberge, 1997) , it had been found that participants' GSR was significantly different during the 'stare' periods compared to the 'no-stare' periods. In Wiseman's research (Wiseman & Smith, 1994;Wiseman et al., 1995), however, no evidence for a remote-staring effect had been found. ...
A major challenge facing modern parapsychology continues to be the replicability of psi. Whilst some researchers appear to consistently obtain positive evidence for psi, others, equally consistently, appear to be less successful. Previous research has attempted to explain this so-called 'experimenter effect' in terms of both psychological variables (in terms of how the experimenter treats his or her participants) and parapsychological variables (the experimenter may use his or her own psi to affect the data). In this paper, both of these interpretations are considered, as are other possible interpretations (such as experimenter error and experimenter fraud). Research in this area emphasises the important role of the experimenter in parapsychology. The paper concludes with a discussion of possible implications for the study of consciousness.
... The stareesÉDA was significantly more activated during the staring periods compared to their EDA level during the non-staring periods. Most of the experiments that followed the same paradigm (Schlitz & LaBerge, 1997;Wiseman & Schlitz, 1997, 1999Wiseman & Smith, 1994;Wiseman, Smith, Freedman, Wasserman & Hurst, 1995) also revealed significant results and in a meta-analysis on all EDA staring studies we could find a small but significant effect size (d = .13 p = .01, ...
Findings in parapsychology suggest an effect of distant intentionality related to remote staring. Previously, either the covariation of a distant gaze with the electrodermal activity (EDA) of the person being observed (staree) or with the person's conscious guesses are measured. We combined these two strands of research. Thereby we allowed for the starees at any time to indicate whether they felt being stared at or not. We distracted the starers by a demanding mental task in half of the sessions or we instructed them to keep their minds busy with anything but the staree. Overall 50 sessions were conducted. The experiment failed to demonstrate a clear cut effect. The difference between the staring and non-staring conditions was not significant. For the comparison of distraction and standard procedures we found no significant differences for EDA or conscious report. However in a post hoc analysis one of the conscious report variables approached significance for the interaction between staring and distraction in the predicted direction. The effect size of the staring effect in this condition was d = 0.57. We conclude that the starer's mental strategy during the non-staring periods may be important.
If personal experience is the basic raw material for psychology, why do all the major psychologies of the past century find reason to marginalize or deny it? Benjamin Bradley presents a thought-provoking study which explores the way our everyday experience of life has been marginalized within the scientific discipline of psychology. Arguing that an experience-based approach to psychology should complement the more traditional scientific approach, Bradley takes a bold initial step towards reclaiming the Enlightenments vision for the discipline.
There has recently been much interest in the relationship between science and religion, and how they combine to give us a 'binocular' perspective on things. One important phenomenon which has been neglected in recent work is the concept of spiritual healing. This edited collection explores a variety of approaches to spiritual healing from different religious points of view, identifying both what it is and how it works. The authors also explore the biological and psychological processes, open to scientific enquiry, through which healing may be mediated. As such, this book indicates the central proposition that religious and scientific perspectives answer different questions about healing, and there is not necessarily any conflict between them.
The sense of being stared at from behind can be investigated by means of simple experiments in which subjects and lookers work in pairs, with the looker sitting behind the subject. In a random sequence of trials the looker either looks at the back of the subject, or looks away and thinks of something else. In each trial the subject guesses whether or not he or she is being looked at. There is a 50% probability of getting it right by chance. More than 15,000 trials have already been conducted, involving more than 700 subjects, with extremely significant excess of correct over incorrect guesses (Sheldrake, 1999), indicating that people really can tell when they are being looked at from behind. In this paper I discuss possible artifacts that could have affected these results and describe the results of experiments carried out in a school in London in which I investigated the effects of blindfolding subjects and giving them feedback about whether their guesses were correct or not. Blindfolding and feedback had no significant effects. Under all conditions the scores in looking trials were positive and statistically significant, and in not-looking trials at chance levels. I also describe the results of a series of experiments carried out in schools in Ireland with blindfolded subjects who were not given feedback. The significant positive scores in these experiments confirmed that the feeling of being stared at from behind does not depend on visual clues, nor does it depend on the subjects knowing if their guesses are right or wrong.
The feeling of being stared from behind is well known all over the world, and most people claim to have experienced it themselves. There have been surprisingly few empirical investigations of this phenomenon. I describe a simple experimental procedure with subjects and lookers working in pairs. In a random sequence of trials, the looker either looked at the back of the subject, or looked away and thought of something else. Such experiments showed a very significant excess of correct over incorrect guesses. When subjects were being looked at, they guessed correctly about 60% of the time, whereas in control trials, when they were not being looked at, their guesses were close to the chance level of 50%. The same pattern of results was found in my own experiments with adult subjects, with two different procedures: in experiments conducted in schools in Connecticut, USA; in experiments conducted by volunteers all around the world; and in a previous series of experiments in schools in Germany and the USA. All these sets of data showed a highly significant effect. Taken together they showed that in looking trials,. 427 people were more often right than wrong, as opposed to 157 who were more often wrong than right. This difference is extremely significant (p < 1 × 10-25). In the control trials, there was no significant difference between the number of people who were more often right than wrong (294) and more often wrong than right (287). These results suggest that the feeling of being looked at from behind is a real phenomenon that depends on factors as yet unknown to science. Non-human animals may also share this kind of sensitivity, which may be of evolutionary significance in the relationships between predators and prey.
Each of the two authors recently attempted to replicate studies in which the "receivers" were asked to psychically detect the gaze directed at them by unseen "senders." R. W.'s studies failed to find any significant effects; M. S.'s study gave positive results. The authors then agreed to carry out the joint study described in this paper, in the hope of determining why they had originally obtained such different results. The experimental design was based on each author carrying out separate experiments, but running them in the same location, using the same equipment/procedures, and drawing participants from the same subject pool. The 32 experimental sessions were divided into two sets of randomly ordered trials. Half were "stare" trials during which the experimenter directed his/her attention toward the receiver; half were "non-stare" (control) trials during which the experimenter directed his/her attention away from the receiver. The receivers' electrodermal activity (EDA) was continuously recorded throughout each session. The EDA of R. W.'s receivers was not significantly different during stare and non-stare trials. By contrast, the EDA of M. S.'s receivers was significantly higher in stare than non-stare trials. The paper discusses the likelihood of different interpretations of this effect and urges other psi proponents and skeptics to run similar joint studies.
Most people have had the experience of turning round feeling that someone is looking at them from behind, and finding that this is the case. Most people have also had the converse experience. They can sometimes make people turn around by staring at them. In surveys in Europe and North America, between 70% and 97% of the people questioned said they had had personal experiences of these kinds (Braud et al., 1990; Sheldrake, 1994; Cottrell et al., 1996).
Experiments show that psi differs from known physical processes in a variety of ways, and these differences are described herein. Because of these, psi cannot be accounted for in terms of presently known physical laws. A number of theories, of which we review a sampling, suggest ways in which known physical laws might be expanded in order to account for psi. However, there is no agreement on which of these theories, if any, will ultimately provide a general explanation. A further problem in studying psi is that it is elusive, i.e., methods are not presently known by which it can be reliably produced. However, if psi is real, its study can open the door to a new frontier of knowledge and contribute to our understanding of consciousness.
The "sense of being stared at" can be investigated by means of simple experiments in which subjects and lookers work in pairs, with the looker sitting behind the subject. In a random sequence of trials, the looker either looks at the back of the subject, or looks away and thinks of something else. More than 15,000 trials have already been conducted, involving more than 700 subjects, with an extremely significant excess of correct over incorrect guesses (Sheldrake [1999]). This effect was still apparent in experiments in which subjects were blindfolded and given no feedback, showing it did not depend on visual clues, nor on the subjects knowing if their guesses were right or wrong (Sheldrake [2000]). In this paper I describe experiments I conducted in schools in England in which the subjects were not only blindfolded and given no feedback, but looked at through closed windows. There was again a very significant excess of correct over incorrect guesses (p < 0.004). At my request, schoolteachers in Canada, Germany and the United States carried out similar experiments and found an even more significant positive effect than in my own experiments (p < 0.0002). The fact that positive results were still obtained when visual clues had been effectively eliminated by blindfolds, and auditory and olfactory clues by closed windows, implies that the sense of being stared at does not depend on the known senses. I conclude that peoples' ability to know when they are being looked at depends on an influence at present unknown to science.
Since ancient times, spiritual teachers have described paths and practices that a person could follow to achieve health, happiness, and peace of mind. Considerable recent research has indicated that any sort of spiritual practice is likely to improve one's prognosis for recovering from a serious illness. Many of these approaches to spirituality involve learning to quiet the mind rather than adhering to a prescribed religious belief. These meditative paths include the mystic branches of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity; Kabalistic Judaism; Sufism; and many others. What is hinted at in the subtext of these teachings is that as one learns to quiet his or her mind, one is likely to encounter psychic-seeming experiences or perceptions. For example, in The Sutras of Patanjali, the Hindu master tells us that on the way to transcendence we may experience all sorts of amazing visions, such as the ability to see into the distance, or into the future, and to diagnose illnesses and to cure them. However, we are told not to get attached to these psychic abilities--they are mere phenomena standing as stumbling blocks on the path to enlightenment. In this article, we describe the laboratory evidence for some of these remarkable phenomena and their implications for science, mental health, and peace of mind.
The purpose of this paper is the exploration and explication of the complex phenomena of "healing presence" and of appropriately supportive theoretical approaches to integrate emerging models for research design. Healing presence is described as an interpersonal, intrapersonal, and transpersonal to transcendent phenomenon that leads to a beneficial, therapeutic, and/or positive spiritual change within another individual (healee) and also within the healer. An integrated framework merging knowledge from diverse fields of research develops the multiple elements of healing presence, the healer, the healee's capacity for response and the healing effect as an entangled phenomenon. A conceptual systemic model is presented, and questions and dilemmas that emerge are delineated. An integrated qualitative-quantitative research design is proposed. A systemic relationship model, which includes the healer, the healee, and persons within the healee's environment is presented. The challenges are substantial, but the research questions are meaningful and worthwhile. The goal is to foster healing at bio-psycho-social-spiritual levels of the human being.
Reports the specification of a construct of social anxiety, the subsequent development of 2 scales, and validational studies. The Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale (FNE) and the Social Avoidance and Distress Scale (SAD) were given to 358 undergraduates. 3 experiments and other correlational data are presented. People high in SAD tended to avoid social interactions, preferred to work alone, reported that they talked less, were more worried and less confident about social relationships, but were more likely to appear for appointments. Those high in FNE tended to become nervous in evaluative situations, and worked hard either to avoid disapproval or gain approval. Certain convergent and discriminant relationships had been part of the construct of social anxiety, and the correlational data support these differentiations. (17 ref.)