FURTHER-STUDIES OF AUTONOMIC DETECTION OF REMOTE STARING - REPLICATION, NEW CONTROL PROCEDURES, AND PERSONALITY-CORRELATES

In a previous paper, we reviewed early experimental attempts to assess subjects' accuracy in consciously detecting when they are being watch ed or stared at by someone situated beyond the range of their conventi onal senses. We also reported new results of our own experiments in wh ich a more ''unconscious'' autonomic nervous system reaction (spontane ous electrodermal activity) was used to assess accuracy of detection o f staring (remote attention). In our experiments, one subject (the sta rer) directed full attention to another distant subject's (staree's) i mage on the monitor of a closed-circuit television system used to elim inate the possibility of subtle sensory cues. The staree's spontaneous electrodermal activity, meanwhile, was monitored objectively by a com puter system during randomly interspersed staring and nonstaring perio ds; the staree was blind regarding the number, timing, and sequencing of the two types of period. We found evidence for significant blind au tonomic discrimination between the staring and nonstaring episodes. In the present paper, we report evidence for autonomic discrimination of staring versus nonstaring periods in two replications-one involving t he same starer who had participated in the earlier studies (t [15] = 2 .08; p = .05, two-tailed; effect size r = .47), and the second involvi ng three new starers (t [29] = 1.92; p = .06, two-tailed; effect size r = .34). Chance results were found, as expected, in a new, improved c ontrol condition (a ''sham control'') in which the data were treated a s they were in a true staring study, but staring did not, in fact, occ ur. We also found that the magnitude of the remote autonomic staring d etection effect was significantly related to the starees' degree of in troversion (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) and to their degree of social avoidance and distress (social anxiety).