Discovery Lab Answers

Charles Honorton — research with L. Tremmel

Before drawing conclusions from the studies below, note the corpus coverage qualification: the ESP-Nexus library’s share of the published literature on Charles Honorton’s work has not been measured. What follows is a summary of what the library holds, not a settled account of the full published record.

The sources retrieved for this question document two distinct lines of collaborative work between Honorton and L. Tremmel: an early ganzfeld study comparing subliminal and normal target presentation, and a later psychophysiological study testing a philosophical hypothesis about mind-brain interaction. Both appear in the literature primarily as references within broader reviews and conference reports rather than as standalone primary texts in the retrieved set.

Experiments

Smith, Tremmel, and Honorton (1975/1976) — The earliest collaboration documented in the sources is a ganzfeld study published in the Research in Parapsychology 1975 proceedings. It compared psi performance under two conditions: a sender viewing a target slide continuously for ten minutes versus viewing it subliminally (tachistoscopically, for one millisecond). Parker and Sjödén note that it was specifically the subliminal presentation condition that produced the notable result. Hume and Lawrence also list this study among a set of clairvoyance-design experiments that used Betts’ QMI imagery measures, noting it employed a repeated-measures design, with results reported separately for each presentation condition.

Honorton and Tremmel (1979) — A later study tested Eccles’ neurophysiological hypothesis of mind-brain interaction, described in the sources as examining “psi correlates of volition” in a biofeedback task. McCarthy (1974) describes the general paradigm: the behavior of a hidden random event generator (REG) was examined during periods when a subject attempted to influence its output, with the study framing psi as connected to volitional control. This work appears in a volume edited by Shapin and Coly, Brain/Mind and Parapsychology. Thalbourne reviewed this work in the context of assessing the “diasomatic hypothesis” and found the evidence from Honorton and Tremmel (1979), among other studies, not satisfactorily supportive of that hypothesis.

Methodology

For the Smith, Tremmel, and Honorton (1975) ganzfeld study, the design used a repeated-measures structure in which each participant served under both the subliminal and supraliminal (continuous) target-presentation conditions, with results analyzed separately per condition. The ganzfeld procedure itself involved the standard sensory attenuation setup. Parker and Sjödén describe this as one of the very first ganzfeld studies, noting it was not simply a replication design but incorporated an experimental manipulation of how the sender engaged with the target.

For the Honorton and Tremmel (1979) REG-biofeedback study, McCarthy describes the paradigm as examining REG behavior during active volitional periods — participants attempted to influence a hidden REG output, and outcomes were assessed against that volitional intent. The study was positioned within a broader theoretical framework connecting psychokinesis and volition to neurophysiological models of mind-brain interaction.

Data

The STRUCTURED EVIDENCE block for this question covers Charles Honorton’s broader research record across five result rows; none of those rows is specific to the Honorton-Tremmel collaboration. The five rows span different metrics (hit rates, standardized effect sizes, and a p-only cumulation), and under the metric-mix rule they cannot be pooled into a single summary figure.

For the Smith, Tremmel, and Honorton (1975) study specifically, the sources note that the subliminal condition produced the significant result, while results from the two conditions were analyzed separately. Hume and Lawrence flag this study among those contributing to heterogeneity in the imagery-ESP literature, though the retrieved excerpts do not give per-condition statistics in a form that can be unambiguously attributed.

For the Honorton and Tremmel (1979) REG-volitional study, Thalbourne’s assessment (as reviewed by Roberts and Hume) was that the evidence did not satisfactorily support the diasomatic hypothesis, but no specific statistics from that study appear in the retrieved excerpts.

The broader Honorton ganzfeld database, as summarized in Honorton (1990) and reported in the evidence table, covers 39 studies and reports a combined effect in the positive direction — but that pooled figure is for the ganzfeld program as a whole, not specific to the Tremmel collaboration.

Skeptical critiques

Thalbourne (2004), as reviewed by Roberts and Hume (2007), examined the Honorton and Tremmel (1979) volitional REG study in the context of evaluating the diasomatic hypothesis and concluded that the evidence from this and related studies did not satisfactorily support that hypothesis. This constitutes a substantive theoretical critique: even granting the reported findings, Thalbourne’s analysis held that the theoretical framework the study was designed to test — Eccles’ neurophysiological account of mind-brain interaction — was not adequately supported by the available data.

What the experimental data show. The sources retrieved do not include a direct replication of the Honorton-Tremmel volitional REG paradigm, nor a published response to Thalbourne’s assessment from the Honorton side. Parker and Sjödén (2010) reference the Smith-Tremmel-Honorton ganzfeld design as a forerunner to later priming studies, treating its subliminal-condition finding as a relevant precursor, but do not address the theoretical adequacy question raised about the 1979 work.

Analysis. The 1979 volitional REG study has not, on the evidence in these sources, attracted replication outside the original group, and Thalbourne’s theoretical evaluation stands without a published counteranalysis in the retrieved material. The 1975 ganzfeld study, by contrast, entered the broader ganzfeld literature as an early design precedent rather than as a contested result.

For the full picture of Honorton’s research program, including the autoganzfeld database and its methodology, see the Charles Honorton scientist page and the dedicated spoke page on the autoganzfeld system and computer automation.