Sean Harribance

PhlegmMaster

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Apparently, this fellow is capable of forming mental images about a person by touching a picture of this person without seeing it. An experiment was conducted by Dr. Persinger, who is not a proponent of the paranormal à la Dean Radin. I e-mailed Persinger, and according to him "the Harribance phenomena have been replicated many times".


Anyway, here's the important part of the article detailing the experiment:



"We have measured two individuals who have been considered the best examples of psychics. The first, Sean Harribance, is a middle-aged man who sustained at least two brain traumas as a child and adolescent. Several neuropsychological assessments have indicated he displays deficits for tasks that typically involve the right parietal and occipital regions. Mr. Harribance states that he perceives quick images, usually in the upper left visual field, about the person with whom he is speaking or the picture that he is touching. The pictures are touched face down. The information, which he reports spontaneously, contains extremely detailed as well as general statements that far exceed a cold reading.
In one study we asked 3 different people to supply 10 photographs, each, of single individuals of their family. Mr. Harribance generated narratives while holding each of these pictures, face down. The narratives were then typed and given to the person who supplied the pictures. Under double-blind conditions, the person read each narrative and indicated who he or she thought it might be. Whereas chance expectancy would be 1 out of 10, the participants accurately identified between 6 and 8 of the 10 narratives as the specific people."


Unfortunately I can't post links yet, but you should be able to find the article easily. Google the journal of neuropsychiatry & clinical neurosciences, or just Harribance Persinger.



What do you guys think?
 
The article can be found on the website of The Journal of Neuropsychology under the heading "Special Cases" (toward bottom of page).

I don't work in the field, but I've always thought well of Persinger. He's done interesting and, to my thinking, credible work. The article is from 2001, though, and I can't find a follow-up, which seems surprising for such a potentially significant finding.

All told, Persinger is someone to keep an interested eye on, but that's about all I'd conclude at this point.
 
PhlegmMaster said:
Apparently, this fellow is capable of forming mental images about a person by touching a picture of this person without seeing it. An experiment was conducted by Dr. Persinger, who is not a proponent of the paranormal à la Dean Radin. I e-mailed Persinger, and according to him "the Harribance phenomena have been replicated many times".


Anyway, here's the important part of the article detailing the experiment:



"We have measured two individuals who have been considered the best examples of psychics. The first, Sean Harribance, is a middle-aged man who sustained at least two brain traumas as a child and adolescent. Several neuropsychological assessments have indicated he displays deficits for tasks that typically involve the right parietal and occipital regions. Mr. Harribance states that he perceives quick images, usually in the upper left visual field, about the person with whom he is speaking or the picture that he is touching. The pictures are touched face down. The information, which he reports spontaneously, contains extremely detailed as well as general statements that far exceed a cold reading.
In one study we asked 3 different people to supply 10 photographs, each, of single individuals of their family. Mr. Harribance generated narratives while holding each of these pictures, face down. The narratives were then typed and given to the person who supplied the pictures. Under double-blind conditions, the person read each narrative and indicated who he or she thought it might be. Whereas chance expectancy would be 1 out of 10, the participants accurately identified between 6 and 8 of the 10 narratives as the specific people."


Unfortunately I can't post links yet, but you should be able to find the article easily. Google the journal of neuropsychiatry & clinical neurosciences, or just Harribance Persinger.



What do you guys think?
Click to expand...


I suspect Mr. Harribance was allowed to present far too much information at a time. I think a test that would satisfy the JREF would limit him to one specific piece of information, say the gender of the person in the photograph. According to the piece you quoted, Mr. Harribance can discern his information about the subject of the photograph by simply touching the back of the picture. I would propose a test in which he is presented with a number of photographs that have had a piece of opaque cardboard taped over their front. The backs of the photographs would be available for him to touch. If he could accurately tell the gender of the person in the photographs at a succes rate well above 50% he could win a million dollars.

Perhaps we should suggest it to him.
 
I would suggest that this guy be blind-folded as well. Sometimes, bleed-through is easy to see.
 
It sounds like descriptions provided could have been general enough for the people supplying the pictures to fit them to several individuals.

Kind of like horoscopes.
 
thaiboxerken said:
I would suggest that this guy be blind-folded as well. Sometimes, bleed-through is easy to see.
Click to expand...

Even that's probably inadequate. It looks like it'd be necessary to control for standard card peeks, such as:

  • reading the card's reflection off the holder's glasses or corneas
  • ultra-high-contrast contact lenses
  • backlit shinethrough
  • others

After applying controls, you'd end up with Zener cards.
 
Ryan O'Dine said:
All told, Persinger is someone to keep an interested eye on, but that's about all I'd conclude at this point.
Click to expand...

Persinger has done good experimental work. But in my opinion he is not always holding himself strictly to scientific thinking. Some quotes from an article:

Michael A. Persinger and Stanley A. Koren (2001): ‘Predicting the Characteristics of Haunt Phenomena from Geomagnetic Factors and Brain Sensitivity: Evidence from Field and Experimental Studies’ in 'Hauntings and Poltergeists; Multidisciplinary Perspectives. McFarland & Company, Inc., 2001'.

Skeptics certainly like his principle that is set in the beginning:

There is not a single case of haunt phenomena whose major characteristics cannot be accommodated by understanding the natural forces generated by the earth, the areas of the human brain that are stimulated by these energies, and the interpretation of these forces by normal psychological processes.
Click to expand...

Perhaps geologists and physicists would have something to say about the following quotes. I hope you read them very carefully:

The primary hypothesis is that transient geophysical fields (TGFs), that involve both electromagneticlike and gravitylike components, are generated by changing tectonic stresses within the earth’s crust. The TGFs exist as very brief, very localized manifestations of strain. Very small TGFs of about 1 cm2 may exist for a few seconds while those of about 1 m2 occur for decaseconds.
Click to expand...

The transient activation of a process within a local space that would contain the physical parameters to create primary consciousness would require a class of densities and stabilities of atomic elements, integrated by geomagnetic activity and focal strain fields from tectonic stresses, for which there is little contemporary knowledge.
Click to expand...

The third process would involve transients in gravity and its intrinsic correlates of physical time. The processes would involve the focused occurrence of kinetic energies such as the movement of doorknobs and light switches and the repetitive sounds and sights within stairwells or hallways. All of these phenomena have a singular similarity in that they occur in a small space with a temporal history of hundreds or thousands of repetitions of the same sequence. This process might involve a discontinuity in some characteristic of time such that all of the events that have occurred in that space are integrated intermittently to produce a force sufficient to affect the manner whose changes in space over time have been very redundant.
Click to expand...
 
tyr_13 said:
It sounds like descriptions provided could have been general enough for the people supplying the pictures to fit them to several individuals.

Kind of like horoscopes.
Click to expand...

What benefit there was from this possible generality? The subjects had to find the right description among all of them.
 
Lusikka said:
Persinger has done good experimental work. But in my opinion he is not always holding himself strictly to scientific thinking. Some quotes from an article... SNIP...
Click to expand...

Well, you've busted my bubble of respect for Persinger. I poked around just enough to find another article of his in The NeuroQuantology Journal. And no, that sound you hear isn't an alarm bell clanging, it's a house of cards falling down.

When you read the pdf, you discover that Persinger (a neurobiologist), and his coauthor Stanley Koren (a "technician") have a surprising and extensive expertise in quantum physics -- a field which neither has a degree in.

PhlegmMaster, Persinger may not be Dean Radin, but there's something just a little caca here.
 
Gr8wight said:
I suspect Mr. Harribance was allowed to present far too much information at a time. I think a test that would satisfy the JREF would limit him to one specific piece of information, say the gender of the person in the photograph. According to the piece you quoted, Mr. Harribance can discern his information about the subject of the photograph by simply touching the back of the picture. I would propose a test in which he is presented with a number of photographs that have had a piece of opaque cardboard taped over their front. The backs of the photographs would be available for him to touch. If he could accurately tell the gender of the person in the photographs at a succes rate well above 50% he could win a million dollars.

Perhaps we should suggest it to him.
Click to expand...

Mr. Harribance already did a test very similar.

EEG Patterns and ESP Results in Forced-Choice Experiments with Lalsingh Harribance. Proceedings of the Parapsychological Association, No. 8, 1971, PP 71-72 , de R. L. Morris, W. G. Roll, J. Klein e G. Wheeler. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research July 1972, Volume 66, No.3, PP 253-263

Link: http://www.seanharribance.com/scicartjpthree.html

ABSTRACT: These studies examine the EEG patterns of Lalsingh Harribance recorded while he was taking ESP tests at which he had previously demonstrated ability. In the first study his task was to guess the sex of persons shown in concealed photographs. A total of 105 runs was carried out, with 668 hits where 525 was expected by chance (CR = 8.83, P<10-12). High-scoring runs (scores of 8, 9, and 10) showed more percent-time alpha than chance-scoring runs (scores of 4, 5, and 6), P<. 05. A comparison of percent-time alpha just prior to the run with percent-time alpha during the run showed that high-scoring runs produced less of a tendency to decrease percent-time alpha from pre-run to run than did chance-scoring runs (P<. 03).

A second study with the same sensitive involved fifty down-through runs with standard ESP cards. Overall results were significant (CR = 4.88, P<. 001). High scoring runs (scores of 10 or more) showed more percent-time alpha than chance-scoring runs (scores of 4, 5 and 6), P<. 005. However, pre-run to run shift in percent-time alpha was unrelated to ESP scores in this study.

EEG Patterns and ESP Results in Forced-Choice Experiments with Lalsingh Harribance. Proceedings of the Parapsychological Association, No. 8, 1971, PP 71-72 , de R. L. Morris, W. G. Roll, J. Klein e G. Wheeler. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research July 1972, Volume 66, No.3, PP 253-263

The procedure was similar to that used in the earlier report by Roll and Klein, which contains a detailed floor plan of the rooms and equipment used in these studies (19, p. 105). Judith Klein (J.K.) sat at a round table in the middle of a room (Room 2) which adjoined L.H.’s room (Room 1), but which did not share an entrance or window with it. To start, J.K. hand-shuffled a deck of ten cards six times. Five of these cards had pictures of males pasted on them and five had pictures of females. Upon completion of the shuffle, she rapped once lightly on the table. This signaled the EEG operator, either Geoffrey Wheeler or Robert Morris (R.M.), to rap once on L.H.’s wall while marking the EEG record at the same time, thereby indicating the start of the run. J.K. then placed the ten cards face down one at a time on top of a blanket on the table, moving from left to right. L.H., upon hearing the signal, wrote ten calls on a record sheet which had spaces corresponding to the ten target cards. He used a vertical line to indicate his impression that a given card had a photograph of a male and a horizontal line to indicate a female photograph. L.H. therefore started his guesses at the same time that J.K. started placing the cards, and he would generally finish shortly after she was finished placing them. He was asked to make the order of his guesses correspond to the order in which they were placed; e.g., his first guess was for the far left card.

When L.H. was done, he flipped a switch which blinked a light next to the EEG operator, who then marked the end of the run on the EEG record. Following this, J.K. turned the cards over and recorded the number of each card in sequence. Cards 1, 2, 7, 8 and 9 were female; the others were male.

After a brief interval, J.K. collected the cards and repeated the procedure. A session consisted of ten runs. After completion of the ten runs, L.H. could signal his desire to do a second session by blinking the light twice. On three occasions we ran two sessions in one day; on three other occasions there was one session a day and on the last day we had our regular session and added five runs to make a total of 105 runs. All were done between May 18 and 2? , 1970.

(...)

L.H.’s overall scoring rate in Series 10 is the highest, to the knowledge of the authors, that anyone has produced during EEG recording. The conditions appeared well-controlled. L.H. was unable to make any sizeable body movement, such as leaving his chair or even leaning far forward, without producing an obvious neuromuscular artifact on the EEG record. Sensory cues were very unlikely. The photos were placed face down on a soft blanket in another room in such a way that even the EEG operator, in the same room as the cards, had difficulty in knowing when J.K. had finished placing the photos. The EEG machine itself made a loud hum. The wall separating the two rooms had formerly been an outside wall, and was thick. There were no openings from room to room save for the small opening through which the EEG leads ran, which was densely packed with rags. The door to L.H.’s room had been closed by the experimenter, and did not open into the room occupied by the experimenter. L.H. was signaled to begin the run, as noted earlier, by one rap given by the EEG operator before the cards had been placed down by J.K. Transfer of information through the signaling process therefore seems unlikely. No one knew the results until the end of the study, as neither person who was in possession of the duplicate records of cards and calls knew the code that was needed for scoring. Checks on the consecutive positions of each card from one run to the next revealed no tendencies toward sequential interdependence in the target order. L.H. therefore could not have obtained his high score by repeating calls from one run to the next.
 
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