Discovery Lab Answers

Robert L. Morris, PhD

Robert L. Morris, PhD, held the Koestler Chair of Parapsychology at the University of Edinburgh and worked across free-response ESP, ganzfeld, DMILS (direct mental interaction with living systems), and the methodology of experimental parapsychology. The sources retrieved for this question span a set of his empirical studies from 2003–2004 plus two of his 2001 methodological essays — a partial slice of his output, not a full inventory of his work; how much of his total record the library holds has not been measured here.

Experiments

The retrieved sources include several distinct lines of work, most co-authored:

• Free-response ESP and mental training — Delanoy, Morris and Watt (2004) ran an ESP training study built around individual differences in learning style, with two preliminary sessions, twelve training sessions, and a follow-up, testing whether relaxation, imagery, and focusing exercises could improve free-response ESP scoring ^[1].
• Psi and associational processes — Wilson, Morris, Tiliopoulos and Pronto (2004) tested whether psi might manifest by influencing ongoing cognitive processes, using word association as the possible vehicle, and analyzed results by which of two people (SW or EP) acted as agent versus experimenter ^[2].
• Cognitive DMILS in Bali — Edge, Suryani, Tiliopoulos and Morris (2004) carried out two DMILS studies in Bali, testing whether one person concentrating (“Help” periods) could affect another’s attention/distraction relative to “Control” periods; Morris helped with the experimental design and joined the team in Bali during Study 2 ^[3]. This line built on Brady and Morris (1997), an earlier DMILS replication.
• Ganzfeld with a creative population — Morris, Summers and Yim (2003) tested anomalous information transfer in ganzfeld using a creative/artist sample, examining whether extraversion, mental-discipline practice, and ESP beliefs predicted ganzfeld success ^[4].

Two 2001 pieces are methodological rather than empirical: “Research Methods in Experimental Parapsychology: Problems and Prospects” ^[5] and the guest editorial “The Continuing Evolution of Parapsychology” ^[6], in which Morris reflected on problem areas facing the field and strategies for addressing them.

Methodology

Morris’s studies in these sources emphasize automation, randomization, and separation of roles:

• The training study used a random number table (Rand Corporation, 1955) seeded from published weather data to set an entry point, with target designation randomly assigned by a person otherwise uninvolved in the study ^[1].
• The Bali DMILS studies used an automated computer system with software written by Paul Stevens, an updated version of the program from the earlier Koestler Lab Brady and Morris (1997) study; Help/Control couplets were randomized by a pseudo-randomized algorithm ensuring equal numbers of Help and Control periods ^[3]. Half the participants received meditation training (candle concentration) to test whether it affected results.
• The creative-population ganzfeld used 100 video-clips (converted to MPEG, played from hard disk) grouped into 25 four-clip target sets chosen to be as dissimilar as possible, with computer selection of pool and target ^[4].
• In his methods essay ^[5], Morris describes the Edinburgh follow-up to the automated ganzfeld (Morris et al., 1995) as introducing greater sender/receiver separation, two sets of videos, and removal of the experimenter from the room with the video equipment — a design deliberately tightened against the challenges raised against earlier ganzfeld procedures. Security of automated ganzfeld systems was itself a subject of Dalton, Morris, Delanoy, Radin and Wiseman (1996), cited within ^[2].

Data

Below are the figures the retrieved excerpts state with an unambiguous attribution. Note the mix of non-comparable metrics — a standardized effect size on an overall psi measure, raw hit rates, correlations, and t-tests on button presses — so these are not poolable into a single “overall” figure. The results run in both directions: some significant, some at chance, with a decline effect in the training study.

Additional detail worth flagging on the mixed picture: in Delanoy, Morris and Watt (2004), the concentration group showed a significant decline in scoring (reported at p < .005, two-tailed, in a damaged passage), and the authors note the parallel to Morris and Morrell (1985), who found positive pretest and negative posttest scoring with a significant decline between them ^[1]. In Wilson et al. (2004), several subgroup analyses fell just short of significance (e.g. an agent-based analysis at t(8) = 2.24, p = .06); the surrounding OCR text is fragmented in places, so I would treat those subgroup figures as needing checking against the original ^[2]. In the creative ganzfeld, the exploratory finding of a 66.7% hit rate among the 21 participants who had viewed the study website is explicitly labelled exploratory ^[4].

Skeptical critiques

The sources retrieved for this question do not include published criticism directed at these specific Morris studies. What they do contain is Morris’s own account of methodological challenges — in ^[5] he notes that the automated ganzfeld procedure “was challenged” and describes tightening the Edinburgh design in response — but that is Morris framing the general critique rather than a named critic engaging his work, so it does not amount to an attributed skeptical exchange here.

For the broader debate over precognition and clairvoyance methodology, the Precognition page discusses the Steinkamp, Milton and Morris (1998) meta-analysis and related work. For Morris’s full research record and profile, see the Scientists section.