Caroline Watt, Christine Fraser, & Alexandra Hopkinson
University of Edinburgh
Braud, Shafer, McNeill, & Guerra (1995) were the first to extend the physiological DMILS paradigm to enhancing performance on a cognitive task: what one might term "cognitive DMILS". Participants were asked to focus their attention on a lit candle and indicate when they became distracted by pressing a button. At the same time, a distant person followed a randomised counterbalanced influence schedule. During Help periods they attempted to help the remote participant maintain their attention on the candle, and during Control periods they turned their attention elsewhere. Five out of seven studies using this remote facilitation of attention focusing paradigm have found evidence suggesting a remote facilitation effect: that is, fewer distractions when being remotely helped. When discussing their cognitive DMILS paradigm, Braud et al. (1995) suggested that remote helping might also extend to psychic performance. That is, one individual may be able to use their mental intention to remotely enhance the psychic performance of another individual. The present study explores this suggestion by asking participants to remotely facilitate a partner's performance on an ESP game. One might term this "psychic DMILS". The study hypothesises a remote helping effect so that there will be higher ESP game scoring during Help epochs compared to Control epochs. In addition, we investigated whether there are sex differences in performance on remote helping tasks because sex role stereotypes tend to represent women as "the caring sex" and thus more inclined to give and be receptive to help than men. Prior to playing the ESP game, participants completed a questionnaire designed to assess willingness to give and to receive help. Seventy-two participants each played the ESP game while a partner in a separate room followed a randomised influence schedule of eight two-minute Help and Control Periods. There was no significant difference between the number of ESP hits during Help periods compared to Control periods (t[71] = 0.81, p(2- t) = 0.42, effect size r = 0.09), therefore the hypothesis was not supported. Possible reasons for the null outcome are discussed. Exploratory analyses found that male and female participants did not greatly differ in overall hitrate, however a significant interaction was found such that females scored more highly on the ESP game when they were being helped, whereas male participants scored more highly when they were not being helped. This trend seems consistent with sex stereotypes, and participants' responses on the questionnaire assessing willingness to give help were also consistent with the stereotypical pattern. Female participants indicated significantly greater willingness to give help than male participants. There was little differenc between male and female participants on willingness to receive help. Finally, in order to stimulate consideration of the question of gender differences in DMILS research, we provide additional post hoc analyses by gender in Watt and colleagues' three previously-published studies of remote facilitation of attention focusing.