Mike- It is hard to tell but I think Moulton and Kosslyn are a bit tongue in cheek here. Stephen is usually pretty knowledgeable in the vagaries of science- clearly this study affirms a null hypothesis. But, those who wish to believe will see nothing here as clearly Psi was there but a) wasn't apparent due to the presence of non-believers, b) was apparent to all but the non-believing researchers, c) is too subtle to be measured by fMRI (probably resonates as some other frequency). Sigh. Dis-proving is not a scientific endeavor (and I'm sure the authors know that). On the other hand, I think it equally likely they know that you have about the same chance of dissuading a believer. Makes me wonder a little what they were really up to. :) Tim
_______________________________ Timothy O. Shearon, PhD Professor and Chair Department of Psychology The College of Idaho Caldwell, ID 83605 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] teaching: intro to neuropsychology; psychopharmacology; general; history and systems -----Original Message----- From: Mike Palij [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thu 11/22/2007 9:51 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Cc: Mike Palij Subject: [tips] I Saw This Coming... It was only a matter of time but what the heck. -Mike Palij New York University [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 2008;20:182-192.) ยจ 2008 The MIT Press Using Neuroimaging to Resolve the Psi Debate Samuel T. Moulton and Stephen M. Kosslyn Harvard University Reprint requests should be sent to Samuel T. Moulton, 844 William James Hall, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, or via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Parapsychology is the scientific investigation of apparently paranormal mental phenomena (such as telepathy, i.e., "mind reading"), also known as psi. Despite widespread public belief in such phenomena and over 75 years of experimentation, there is no compelling evidence that psi exists. In the present study, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used in an effort to document the existence of psi. If psi exists, it occurs in the brain, and hence, assessing the brain directly should be more sensitive than using indirect behavioral methods (as have been used previously). To increase sensitivity, this experiment was designed to produce positive results if telepathy, clairvoyance (i.e., direct sensing of remote events), or precognition (i.e., knowing future events) exist. Moreover, the study included biologically or emotionally related participants (e.g., twins) and emotional stimuli in an effort to maximize experimental conditions that are purportedly conducive to psi. In spite of these characteristics of the study, psi stimuli and non-psi stimuli evoked indistinguishable neuronal responses-although differences in stimulus arousal values of the same stimuli had the expected effects on patterns of brain activation. These findings are the strongest evidence yet obtained against the existence of paranormal mental phenomena. --- ---
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