Abstract

Studied performance on a forced-choice psi task with 12 emotionally unpleasant and 12 neutral targets. The emotional targets consisted of 8 simple black and white line drawings and 4 colorful and more complex pictures; the neutral targets were 12 identical line drawings of a rectangle. Ss made a choice of whether each target was emotional or neutral, and the main target variables under study were emotional vs neutral and simple vs complex. Exp 1 had a GESP design and 48 novice Ss. Exp 2 had a clairvoyance design and 14 experienced Ss who had taken part in Exp 1 and who had then undergone training in techniques reputed to enhance psi performance. Exp 3 had a clairvoyance design and 75 novice Ss. In all 3 studies Ss showed no difference in scoring between emotional and neutral targets once Ss\' preference for calling "neutral" more often than "emotional" was accounted for. Ss scored nonsignificantly higher for complex vs simple emotional targets in Exps 1 and 2, but Exp 3 !found the opposite trend. Analyses using Ss\' individual emotionality ratings of the targets also found little difference in ESP scoring comparing the most to the least emotional targets.