ATTENTION FOCUSING FACILITATED THROUGH REMOTE MENTAL INTERACTION

This study is part of a program that is beginning to assess direct men tal influences of one person upon a variety of nonphysiological activi ties (cognitive, emotional, social, psychic) being carried out simulta neously by another, distantly isolated, person. Sixty volunteer partic ipants, during individual 16-minute sessions, focused attention upon a n object while indicating each time the mind wandered from this focus (i.e., each time the mind was distracted) by pressing a hand-held butt on. A computer recorded these distraction-indicating button-presses. D uring eight 1-minute Help periods, another person in a distant room at tempted to help the participant by focusing on an identical object and intending for the participant to attend well and not be distracted. D uring eight 1-minute Control periods, the helper did not attempt to in fluence the participant but, rather, thought about irrelevant matters. The random schedule of the two types of periods was unknown to the pa rticipant. Participants evidenced significantly greater focused attent ion (fewer distractions) during Help than Control periods, t(59) = 2.0 0, p = .049, two-tailed, effect size = .25. The magnitude of the remot e mental helping effect was significantly correlated (r = .26 and r = .32) with two measures of the participant's ''need to be helped'' (mea sures of concentration difficulties and difficulties in attending). Th e effect size for the needy participants was .56, whereas the effect s ize for the non-needy participants was -.03.