Security measures in an automated ganzfeld system

Journal of Parapsychology, The, June, 1996 by Kathy S. Dalton, Robert L. Morris, Deborah L. Delanoy, Dean I. Radin, Robin Taylor, Richard Wiseman

As parapsychological testing procedures produce successful results, they attract increasingly sophisticated levels of criticism, including criticism of their security aspects. Safeguards against fraud or deviation from protocol are often challenged with regard to researchers as well as participants.

This is especially true for protocols that involve very few individuals already regarded as talented, such as special sender-receiver pairs, as well as protocols that focus on producing dramatic effects, such as macro-PK. Many parapsychologists deliberately choose to avoid gifted individuals, or special subjects, because they wish to escape the suggestions of fraud that would be likely to follow positive results. As Morris (1986) has argued, protocols that emphasize one or a few participants and produce dramatic effects are regarded as ideal by those who wish to avoid the noise and uncertainty produced by weak results. It is unfortunate, however, that such dramatic effects are also attractive to the media and are thus regarded as ideal for the pseudopsychic, or someone intending to cheat if given the opportunity.

In general, the more participants there are in a study, the less likely it is that deception has occurred, because one would need to posit increasingly complex collusion among different individuals. In addition, the motivation of a pseudopsychic to cheat is decreased when there is less opportunity to become famous by doing so, as in studies that use many participants and do not focus on individual results (Morris, 1986). Process-oriented research also militates against deception, because the internal patterns of results would need to be produced fraudulently as well (but see Wiseman & Morris, 1995, for a description of strategies that pseudopsychics can use to produce patterns in results). With larger population samples, such possibilities for deception become increasingly unlikely unless the participants are all drawn from the same tightly knit group. However, many investigators may not have the necessary resources to conduct larger studies, or they may not be able to locate enough participants capable of producing the strong and consistent psi that would be desired for effective process-oriented research. Thus, it is important to employ procedures designed to minimize the likelihood of participant fraud.

A second area of security addressed here concerns precautions against experimenter bias or deviation from intended procedure. This is a serious consideration primarily for protocols that employ a single experimenter and where intentional experimenter bias would likely pass unnoticed by others connected with the study, both colleagues and participants. Intentional experimenter bias is of less concern when there are procedures involving co-experimenters, when different sessions are conducted by different experimenters, and when independent researchers have also found evidence for the effect in question. When considering intentional experimenter bias, one should note that motivation can go in both directions. Experimenters may wish to get good results to keep a program alive or to obtain more funding and prestige, especially if they are persuaded that the effect is really there, although it is "shy" and currently eludes detection. On the other hand, some researchers may be motivated to produce chance results since they would then be regarded by many mainstream researchers and the media as excellent scientists who are doing a fair evaluation of the phenomena but are using methodologically superior procedures, and who are providing an important public service in a difficult area. Individual researchers may find their motives questioned and may come under suspicion of fraud, regardless of their results.

Given the possibility of attribution of intentional experimenter bias or procedural deviation, ideally one would wish to employ procedures that eliminate these, without constraining the procedures to those that have no real ecological validity and little likelihood for success. If a procedure's virtues could easily be made obvious to all potential critics, yet not seem intrusive to participants, all involved would feel more confident that whatever results emerged would not lead to unfounded accusations. In practice such perfection can only be approximated. The most effective solution, in parapsychology as well as other research, is natural replication and extension, with many participants and researchers involved. But it is also important and useful to have procedures as well safeguarded as possible even at early stages, for several reasons: (a) as a sign of general competence; (b) to minimize unfair criticisms; (c) to help all involved feel comfortable with the results at various stages of the study; (d) to provide conditions that will not need to be altered substantially in later stages, following reasonable criticism of earlier studies; (e) to discourage fraudulent individuals from participating and wasting researchers' valuable time; (f) to encourage others to feel confident in replication attempts; and (g) to encourage potential sources of funding to feel confident that their funds will be intelligently used.