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Plain English Summary
This paper tackles a big question: is there real evidence for telepathy, and could quantum physics help explain it? The authors reviewed 108 ganzfeld experiments -- studies where a person in a relaxed, sensory-deprived state tries to pick up mental images sent by someone else. Across over 4,000 trials spanning decades and multiple labs, people guessed correctly 31.5% of the time when chance would predict 25%. Six separate meta-analyses all agreed, with the combined odds against this being a fluke sitting at roughly one in a hundred billion. Intriguingly, the effect only showed up when participants were in altered states of consciousness -- ordinary conditions produced nothing. The authors then make a bold theoretical move, suggesting that quantum cognition models, which already outperform classical ones for explaining certain quirks in human decision-making, could naturally accommodate this kind of nonlocal information transfer.
Actual Paper Abstract
The possibility that information can be acquired at a distance without the use of the ordinary senses, that is by "extrasensory perception" (ESP), is not easily accommodated by conventional neuroscientific assumptions or by traditional theories underlying our understanding of perception and cognition. The lack of theoretical support has marginalized the study of ESP, but experiments investigating these phenomena have been conducted since the mid-19th century, and the empirical database has been slowly accumulating. Today, using modern experimental methods and meta-analytical techniques, a persuasive case can be made that, neuroscience assumptions notwithstanding, ESP does exist. We justify this conclusion through discussion of one class of homogeneous experiments reported in 108 publications and conducted from 1974 through 2008 by laboratories around the world. Subsets of these data have been subjected to six meta-analyses, and each shows significantly positive effects. The overall results now provide unambiguous evidence for an independently repeatable ESP effect. This indicates that traditional cognitive and neuroscience models, which are largely based on classical physical concepts, are incomplete. We speculate that more comprehensive models will require new principles based on a more comprehensive physics. The current candidate is quantum mechanics.
Research Notes
Key bridge paper connecting the ganzfeld experimental evidence base to quantum cognition theory. Co-authored by three major figures in parapsychology (Tressoldi, Storm, Radin). Directly synthesizes the six meta-analyses central to Controversy #1 (ganzfeld telepathy) and proposes quantum entanglement as a theoretical framework.
Reviewing 108 ganzfeld telepathy experiments conducted from 1974 to 2008 across laboratories worldwide, six independent meta-analyses all show significantly positive hit rates above the 25% chance baseline. The overall effect across 4,196 trials (after outlier removal) was 31.5% hits, corresponding to ES π = 0.58 (95% CI .56–.60, z = 9.9, p = 1.0 × 10⁻¹¹). Ganzfeld and other altered-state experiments yielded comparable effects (π = 0.57–0.60), while non-ASC experiments produced null results. The authors argue that quantum-inspired cognitive models—already shown to outperform classical models for conjunction fallacy, decision-making, and categorization—provide a natural theoretical framework for accommodating nonlocal information transfer.
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Related Papers
Cites
- Meta-Analysis of Free-Response Studies, 1992–2008: Assessing the Noise Reduction Model in Parapsychology — Storm, Lance (2010)
- Does Psi Exist? Comments on Milton and Wiseman's (1999) Meta-Analysis of Ganzfeld Research — Storm, Lance (2001)
- Does Psi Exist? Replicable Evidence for an Anomalous Process of Information Transfer — Bem, Daryl J (1994)
- Updating the Ganzfeld Database: A Victim of Its Own Success? — Bem, Daryl J (2001)
- Does Psi Exist? Lack of Replication of an Anomalous Process of Information Transfer — Milton, Julie (1999)
- Meta-Analysis That Conceals More Than It Reveals: Comment on Storm et al. (2010) — Hyman, Ray (2010)
- "Future Telling": A Meta-Analysis of Forced-Choice Precognition Experiments, 1935-1987 — Honorton, Charles (1989)
Same Research Program
- Replication Unreliability in Psychology: Elusive Phenomena or "Elusive" Statistical Power? — Tressoldi, Patrizio E (2012)
- Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence: The Case of Non-Local Perception, a Classical and Bayesian Review of Evidences — Tressoldi, Patrizio E (2011)
- Stage 2 Registered Report: Anomalous Perception in a Ganzfeld Condition - A Meta-Analysis of More Than 40 Years Investigation — Tressoldi, P.E (2024)
Also by these authors
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Observer Influence on Quantum Interference: Testing the von Neumann-Wigner Consciousness-Collapse Theory
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📋 Cite this paper
Tressoldi, Patrizio E, Storm, Lance, Radin, Dean (2010). Extrasensory Perception and Quantum Models of Cognition. NeuroQuantology. https://doi.org/10.14704/nq.2010.8.4.291
@article{tressoldi_2010_extrasensory,
title = {Extrasensory Perception and Quantum Models of Cognition},
author = {Tressoldi, Patrizio E and Storm, Lance and Radin, Dean},
year = {2010},
journal = {NeuroQuantology},
doi = {10.14704/nq.2010.8.4.291},
}