The Effect of Short-Term Stimulus upon ESP Process

OTANI Soji and KURIHARA Hiroko

ABSTRACT

The experiment was conducted to see the change of ESP scores affected by short-term sound stimulus inserted during ESP test. Subjects were asked to make call every two seconds, guessing the ESP symbols concealed under the record sheet. The sound of 2 second duration was given to the subjects who were continuing guess, with irregular interval, twice in a run. In the exploratory series, the subject's ESP scores changed by application of the sound, first decline, next rise and then fall to the chance level. In the main series, however, the shift of ESP scoring level as in the exploratory series was not observed. Subjects showed a tendency to get higher scores in the trial to which the sound stimulus was given and in the following four trials, than in the trials of other places in the run. This tendency was remarkable when 125 Hz sound, estimated as comfortable one by the subjects, was used as the stimulus. (CR: 3.458, P=0.0005) The difference of the effect of inserted stimulus between two series seemed to be caused by change of subject's attitude toward the inserted stimulus, owing to habituation effect to the experimental situation. It may be safely said, from these results, that ESP process is affected by short-term stimulus very promptly and this effect fades away rapidly.

Key words: ESP process, position effect, sound stimulus, short-term
stimulus, physiological measurements, habituation.