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

In general, it is important to consider all sources of information that might be linked to the target at the various stages of its generation, storage, and display, including any blind judging situation. We need to ensure that none of those sources of leakage are available to the receiver or to anyone with whom the receiver has contact at crucial stages of the experiment. The use of automated equipment can effectively eliminate many such sources of leakage, but unfortunately it can also create new sources. As equipment capabilities evolve and sophisticated equipment becomes cheaper, various sources of information at any given stage may be eliminated. For instance, the use of CD recorders in our current system would eliminate some of the cueing possibilities from the standard VCRs used now. We would use them in any future system we constructed, but even they would need to be evaluated carefully to ensure that they themselves do not introduce new sources of leakage. In short, any system that manages a target must have all its components evaluated to assess the extent to which they may provide a direct or indirect link to the receiver.

Criticism 4: Sound leakage from the target room to the experimenter might provide cues if senders are noisy. As was noted in the description of both the experimenter's and the sender's rooms, these rooms are separated by some distance (approximately 25 meters) and by a small flight of stairs and three closed doors, two of which are locked throughout the session. In addition, we have had our facilities acoustically evaluated (sound attenuation between the sender's room and the foyer of the experimental suite was above 55dB from 125Hz on up, and presumably higher for the experimental room itself when the door is closed). This evaluation confirmed that even without headphones on, our experimenters could not hear shouts from the sender's room. In addition, there is an electrical sensing system connected to the door of the sender's room that was designed to detect the opening of the door by activating a flashing red light in the experimenter's room. Consequently, if the sender left the room during the experiment, the experimenter would instantly be alerted. As an added precaution, the door into the experimental foyer is kept locked during sessions. In recent studies (Morris et al., 1995), only laboratory staff were used as senders, and all of them knew that they were to be quiet. Additionally, the computer instructs the sender, in two different places in the program, to silently send the target or encourage the receiver with regard to it. Written instructions for the sender are in the target room, and they include instructions to silently send the target. In general, it is important to remember that senders may use strategies that can produce additional information, such as showing emotion verbally and physically, acting out scenes, responding to any real-time feedback they may receive from hearing the receiver's responses and judging, and so on. Such a possibility is reduced by using as senders staff members who know the characteristics of the system. But many receivers may feel more comfortable with senders with whom they already have a sense of rapport, and exploration of sender/receiver rapport is an important research topic in itself. Thus, sensory shielding from sender to receiver or to anyone linked to the receiver should be very thorough, more than might casually appear to be the case to the participant.