Bikives ARE Nehelles cutelorMarwnonOusgeou, Kod Au p (in "VISAGES": A COMPUTER-BASED TEST OF FACE PRECOGNITION MARIO VARVOGLIS"& MICHEL-ANGE AMORIM LABORATOIRE DE RECHERCHE SUR LES INTERACTIONS PST Brcomuter-based psi experiment was conducted to explore whether subjects could precognize the features of \s randomly TPMOte Fee ed eee tment Was based upon a subset or ene fa prooton: 1temti tquseci byapolllcelitogne agi daner ahead facial | Characteristics of a missing person oc a eciginty, Forty subjects participated, each contributing a minimus of four runs (16 trials). fubJects were presented with 4 target packs each containing nggdlfferent instances of a particular facial tectocn , the other based upon the question ‘"wnere ts fhe target", and involving the usual scanning of pousibi> Mtles In order to make a cholce , stores the cesults, provides feedback (showing the target-face and the score), and offers the subject options to continue or quit. A slightly modified version of the program serves to collect control oc "simulation" trials, in which no subject is present. The program essentially creates two faces, on the basis of two sets of candom numbers; the first set’ subst |. tutes for the subject’s guesses, while the second defines the target face as described above. A more detailed description of the program’s operation is given In the Target-preparation and Procedure sections. Target-preparation - The Target pool was based upon a portion of the Penry Photo- fit Kit, kindly provided by the central police department of Paris , and selection is made by clicking on the mouse and stopping the “image roulette" at some particular Image. The image actually selected, however, is not the one last seen by the subject, but rather one which is randomly generated just after mouse inputs; irrespective of how fast their reaction time might be, subjects cannot consciously select a particular target. The order of task presentation, fixed across subjects, was based upon a predetermined schedule allowing for different pecmutations of ‘the biograhpy and task-modality variables. The first four ,runs were scanning/blography, scanning/no biography, timing/biography, timing/no biography. In both scanning and timing modes, the specific Instance chosen by the person is immediately added to those previously selected. Thus, as subjects proceed through the four faclal elements and select a particular face-outline, set of eyes, nose, and mouth, they see the face being constructed. (Figure 3 illustrates a face with three features already chosen and lips not yet selected?. The process of face construction ls automatic: placement of the feature chosen on the face depends not upon the subject, but upon predefined coordinates. Following the subject’s selection of all four elements, and thus the completion of the face, the Individual Is presented with options 5:"Review Face", and 6:"See target". Option 5 allows subjects to review the face constructed, in case they’ve changed their mind about a particular selection Cin which case, they can re-initiate the selection process by clicking on the corresponding number in the Menu). Option number 6, once clicked, launches the construction of the target face. The program generates four random numbers, between 1 and 16, each corresponding to a particular Instance of the four features. The program also randomly selects a name out of the name-file, and, in the "biography" condition, constructs a biography by randomly selecting 6 statements from the 20 categories of statements. The program Approved For Release2009/08/ 15,4 CA-RDR96 G7 FARBOOY ce lil| }60001-3 Approved For Release 2000/08/15 : CIA-RDP96-00792R0007010 the, target face on the screen, along with a name, @ graphic bat ee foe fe viewing the subject chosen face, and another button for reading the blography (x)° Eggons with the target-faces it) nee shows the scores Sosained for each of the four elemanec, These scores give Sublects a numerical estimate of ens Proximity of their cholces to the target-instances, Fee each element, the i Possible scores are 0. (no relation between target and 1 choice), 2 chalt-page success). 4 tenn success), 8 (pair Seog AP oo ecCMMI RPE Thus athemeat | Score for the t every te eas ange from 0 to a very unlikely oa “direct hits on i every trial). telares? EOE? asked to complete at least four rune ‘sixteen 20 ceeicene ieee allowed to contribute acare 1 ons runs, if ! Sap SERSG Nae rn col ou lnottebabaceatner cen iy either click rrr rrr rl rr they had Vianges cote tutes, Slick ona Stop” button” fo close the Visages program and end the session’ ExBulation Runs: In order to ensure that the RND function of spe imlsa operates correctiy, and’ “then there vere no secay ada, Re Phogram’s logic, we concucten simulation prow ame 2324 UPON a Slightly modified veceiee ot the Visages progeam. In this progam, the subject's scanning or timing Fanden® £0F each element were replaced by tie generation of 1 cangom pumbers between 1-16. Thus, tne Program would Bye ceetaee a o2ce (onl thelibasl efae tagrarer ee numbers, and then Once, launched, the simulation progeam ran automatically, ree it CoOmleted 9 runs; It wag then re-launched by the rung auenter. This process continued until the number of Funs accumulated equalled the total of experimental cuns. tare oreen with the biography text vas intended to examine eng, Meaningfulness factor ment loned’ th the Introduction, From the first few sessions, subjects appeared to be con— pised_ as to the role and purpose or the statements; the Plography seemed incongruent with the stated nature of the kask-precognizing a randomly constructed face. Following mon cated negative comments by severs| Subjects, the experi— aeeeee Mealized that the biography was Rot appropriate for thig ging meaningfulness, and decided to drop assessment of this factor from the study. row thee Point on, he no longer ppcoqteds Gublectemtoleet ck wore ena biography button, and Practically no one did. | 337 1-3 Approved For Release 2000/08/15 : CIA-RDP96-00792R00070106000°Approved For Release 2000/08/15 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000701060001-3 RESULTS: Collectiviy, the 40 participants contributed a total of 212 experimental cuns (848 trials). Individuals’ contribution to this database was quite uneven: 28 of the 40 participants completed just the minimum of 4 cuns each, while the remai- nlng 12 contributed between 5-14 runs. Using subjects’ mean feedback score as an index of Individual performance, we find that the average score for the group contributing 4 runs is 10.16, while for the group contributing more runs it is 9.18. A t-test for Independent means shows no difference between the two groups (t=.752, 38 df, ns). Figure 4, depic- ting mean feedback scores for all subjects, also shows that there are no consistent trends distinguishing the scores of the 28 subjects who contcibuted exactly 4 runs, from the 9 contributing 5-9 runs, and the 9 contributing 10-14 runs. The evaluation of overall cesults, utillzing the trial as unlt, was based upon two goodness-of-flt tests - one for expecimental and one for simulation data. These analyses examine whether the observed distribution of hits, for all scoring levels, conforms to the binomlal expectation (the probabllity corresponding to each scoring level multiplied by the number of trials>. The probabillties used to estimate expectation for each scoring level represent the likellhood of obtaining exactly (rather than “at least") a pair hit, a cow hit, etc.; they thus allow each scoring level to be treated independently. The probabilities corresponding to each level of hitting are direct hit, 1/16; palc hit, 1/163 row hit, 1/8; half-page hit, 1/4; and miss, 1/2. (For example, in the facial-outline example cited earller, with D2 as target, there is exactly 1 way to obtain a direct hit, 1 way to obtain specifically a pair hit , 2 ways to ob- tain a row hit (D3, D4), 4 possibilities for a half-page hit (all of row ©) and 8 ways to obtain a miss ‘rows A and B)). Table 1 summarizes the results of the goodness-of-fit tests. The first row represents the expected number of hits for each scoring-level, given a total of 848 trials. The second and third rows show the obtained number of hits for simula- tion and experimental trials (respectively). As can be seen from this table, simulation trials conformed quite closely to expectation. In contrast, the distribution of scores in experimental trials departs significantly from expectation (chi-sq (4 df] = 12.692; p=.013). This latter result Is assoclated with an effect size of .076 Cobtalned by converting the p-value to a one-tailed z-score, and dividing the latter by the square root of N, l.e., of 648). The significant effect for the experimental telals was mainly due to a shift from the expected number of hits In the three pactial-hit levels (pair, row and half-page). Post-hoc chi-square analyses, comparing each of the five hitting levels with the other four, suggest that the main effect was due to a shortage of hits at the pair-hits level (chi-sq (1 dé]=5.813,, p=0.16), and an excess of hits at the AppprowstbF of Reléase-2000/08/15 < CIA-RDP96-00792R000701060001-34 3 awpaeu Approved For Release 2000/08/15 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000701060001-3 aesthetic crlterla, subjects conglstently selected cectaln instances and avoided other ones; whereas one would expect each Instance of a particular element to be chosen about an equal number of times - specifically 106/16, or 6.625 times- there were instances which had been chosen just once or twice, and others chosen 15 or even 20 times!. By comparison to the conflicts induced by the scanning task, the timing task was effortless and entertaining. Given that all subjects went through both conditions, it is possible that the significant timing-task cesult simply reflects a preferential effect: this condition may have faced better because subjects perceived It as less frustrating. Alter- natively, insofar as subjects had little control ovec their selections during the timing-task, and Just had to press the button when they felt the time was "right", they were less prone to counter-productive psychological sets (e.g., trying too hard) and more apt to adopt a passive, "goal-oriented approach. The study’s results may be seen as analogous to those of RNG-PK studies suggesting the superiority of goal- oriented over process-oriented strategles (Morris, Nanke and Phillips, 1979; Levi, 1979), or of hidden RNG-PK tasks over explicit ones (Berger, 1988; PRL,1984; Varvoglis, 1989). It should be noted, though, that the specific distribution of scores in the timing task does not lend itself to any simple Interpretations . It 1s not clear why hitting should manifest at a level at which it is least rewarding, and at which psi-infocmation is least useful. Similarly, it is not clear why the trend toward missing ‘most apparent in the overall results? should manifest at the pair-level, at which psi-information was quite precise, and a hit, presumably, quite rewarding. CONCLUSION It is obvious that this study’s results, though significant, are not ‘particularly encouraging for psychic criminology applications. The overall patterning of experimental scores seems to have been due to a combination of hitting and missing, with the most conspicuous hitting occurring at too low an informational level to be especially useful. On the other hand, It should be stressed that the task was as removed from real psychic criminology as could be - involving repeated trials, "normal" subjects, and fictional faces, rather than a single trial by a "psychic" attempting to describe a dangerous criminal. Also, insofar as the Procedures encouraged subjects to focus upon faclal-features rather than upon the face as a whole, our tasks may have been simply too elementaristic to fairly assess the utility of faces as psi targets. Be that as it may, we are looking to shift our approach with Visages. Leaving aside psychic criminology, for now, we are ApERBTER RSr RPGR eOOMDATIRE CAPRIaP PE ULARCORTorogone TEApproved For Release 2000/08/15 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000701060001-3 block subjects’ receptivity to psi Information would render thon effective PK agents. Next time, rather than asking participants to fight their. feelings and preferences and Pegponse biases, we’re going to tell them to go for \t, and (try tod have it their’ way... REFERENCES Agor, W.H. (1984). Intuitive management: Integrating jeft doer tight bealn management skills. Prentice Hall Press: NY Amocim, M.A, Cin press?. Applications et apprentissage en parapsychologie. Revue Francalse de Psychotronique, Yo! 3. Berger, R. (1988>. 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