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Volume 11 : Number 2 : Article 4
Unconscious Perception of Future Emotions: An
Experiment in Presentiment
by
Dean I. Radin
Consciousness Research Laboratory, Box 454009 4505 Maryland Pkwy, Harry
Reid Center
for Environmental Studies University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV
89154-4009
and
Geoffrey Dean
Analogic, Box 466, Subiaco 6008, Western Australia
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Volume 11 Number 2: Page 163.
Is consciousness limited to perception of the sensory present and memory of
the past, or does it also have access to future information? In an
experiment designed to explore this question, a computer was used to
randomly select and present target photos from a pool of digitized
photographs. Some targets labeled "calm" included landscapes and cheerful
people; other targets labeled "extreme" included violent and erotic topics.
Heart rate, blood volume, and electrodermal activity were recorded before,
during and after presentation of the target photo to see whether the body
would unconsciously respond differentially to the two types of future
targets. Extreme targets were expected to produce classical orienting
responses after the targets were displayed, and a "presentiment" (future
feeling) effect was predicted to produce orienting pre-sponses before the
pictures were displayed. Calm targets were expected to cause no unusual
responses before or after the target was displayed. Four experiments,
involving 31 participants who viewed a total of 1,060 target photos, showed
the expected orienting response after the target photo was displayed. In
accordance with a presentiment hypothesis, there was a clear orienting
pre-sponse that peaked with a four standard error difference in
physiological measures between extreme and calm targets one second before
the target photo was displayed.
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Damien Broderick