Consciousness Studies: Cross-Cultural Perspectives

Journal of Parapsychology, The, Fall, 2003 by Rex G. Stanford

In his discussion of a supposed positive relationship between subliminal sensory response and extrasensory response (pp. 83-85), his argument might have been strengthened by the citation of a meta-analysis of work correlating extrasensory and subliminal functioning in laboratory tests (included in Stanford, 1990) that sustained the very point that Rao seemingly wanted to make here: namely, parallels between extrasensory and subliminal sensory functioning. Rao might have advanced the conceptual plausibility of his case by providing some incisive discussion of how the particular, presumably similar, processing demands of subliminal and extrasensory tasks might create the expected positive correlation of performance of these two kinds. He says "In neither case do we have a clear understanding of the process by which the subliminal stimulus or the ESP target causes these behavioral effects from which we infer subliminal or extrasensory perception" (p. 85). Discussion of the work of Bargh (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999), concerned with unconscious sensory influences on thought and behavior, and of Stanford (1990) in regard to unconscious extrasensory influence (i.e., the PMIR model) could have provided some precise hypotheses related to such matters.

The section on memory and ESP proved a disappointment, but, admittedly, some of the past work in this area is a disappointment to me, conceptually speaking. What seems lacking in Rao's discussion here, and in some of the research publications, is a clearly stated, logically coherent rationale for expecting a particular kind of relationship of performance on memory and on extrasensory tasks or for expecting an intrinsic process-relevant relationship between these kinds of functioning. In Chapter 4's discussion of the Stanford-Stein (1994) meta-analysis of studies examining hypnosis and a control condition, it is said that "Stanford and Stein also report cumulative ESP-test scores significant for hypnosis" (p. 92). Rao's treatment of our meta-analysis neglects to mention that the hypnosis-comparison contrast was not significant when the experimenter was used as the basis of the analysis so as to obviate the possibility that heavy contributions to the database by particular experimenters would bias the outcome. Also, ESP performance in neither the hypnosis nor the comparison condition was significant when analyzed in terms of chief investigator. This important set of qualifying findings should have been mentioned, for it brings into question the generalizability of the outcome that hypnosis can be used to facilitate ESP performance.

Chapter 5, "Consciousness, Mind and Intentionality: Philosophical Discussions," consists of sketches of the positions of certain historically important philosophers relative to such issues as the mind-brain or mind-body relationship. One often has the impression here of reading a very basic philosophy text, the more so given that the ideas of numerous philosophers of the mind, of a variety of persuasions, are discussed in the span of 28 pages. This chapter may prove interesting for those who have not had basic philosophy courses and possibly for some who have. How much of this chapter will be of interest to those primarily interested in the science of consciousness is difficult to know.