"Proceedings of the Parapsychological Association," No. 8, 1971, PP 67-69

Symposium: Recent Research with Lalsingh Harribance

CHAIRMAN: Richard Kramer, Duke University

Physical Aspects of the Target

W.G. Roll, Psychical Research Foundation RESEARCH FOUNDATION

TWO STUDIES WERE carried out to assess what role the physical aspects of the target might play in Lalsingh Harribance’s (L.H.’s) exceptionally good psi performance. In previous studies, L.H. had shown a strong preference for working with 10 particular target cards, each of which had a photograph of a male or female face pasted on it. The photographs were taken from yearbooks: five were male and five were female.

In Series 1, three kinds of target decks were used: the original 10 cards; 10 new cards, each of which had a print of one of the original cards pasted on it; and 10 zinc plates, each of which had a reproduction of one of the original cards on one side. The cards of each deck were numbered 1-10, the same as the original cards. The series consisted of 12 sessions, one per day. Each session contained nine runs, three with each kind of card, in a balanced order. There were a total of 108 runs (1080 trials) in the series, 36 runs with each kind of deck. At the start of a session, L.H. was conducted to his room by Muriel Roll (M.R.).

Judith Klein (J.K.) then entered the building, went into the adjoining room, and closed the door. The target order for each run had been prearranged by a third party. The target cards were kept folded in a long strip of cloth so that they could be handled silently.

At the start of the run, J.K. unwrapped the appropriate cards, arranged them in the target order, face up, on top of a doubly-folded blanket, and placed over them a wooden frame covered with manila cardboard plus four thicknesses of fabric. She then left the room and entered a third room, closing the door. Upon hearing the door close, M.R. conducted L.H. to the targets. L.H. then took up a deck of cards that was lying off to the side, each of which had one of the 10 photos printed on one side. These cards were placed one by one in front of the concealed target cards in an attempt to match them. M.R. recorded the final order of L.H.’s cards and they returned to their room. J.K. then entered and prepared the next targets, and the procedure was repeated. When J.K. left at the end of the session, she kept the target orders and testing materials with her. M.R. retained the record of L.H.’s guesses separately.

L.H.’s overall results showed that he was very successful at matching the sex of the concealed photographs for all three kinds of cards. The original cards, new cards, and metal plates had highly significant CR’s of 4.96, 5.16, and 5.39, respectively. Direct matches were less frequent, but also were well distributed among the three kinds of target. None of the three attained independent significance, but the overall direct matching score was almost marginally significant (CR=1.93; P @ .05, two-tailed).

The procedure for Series 2 was very similar. Only metal cards were used, but the material used to cover the cards was varied. Sheets of glass, metal or rubber were set on top of the cards before the wooden frame and blanket were used as the final covering. J.K. used plastic gloves to handle all materials involved in the testing situation. All other aspects of the procedure were the same as Series 1.

The overall results for Series 2 were quite insignificant. For the glass covering condition, L.H. had a positive score of +12 for 360 trials (CR = 1.74; P<.10, two-tailed); the other two conditions were at chance. In neither study, then, did the nature of the physical materials involved make a significant difference in L.H.’s performance.