Mental Connection at Distance: Useful for Solving Difficult Tasks?

Abstract

Aim of this study is to provide a demonstration of the non-local property of the human mind to connect at distance, that is, without the classical means of communication. In the first experiment, 40 participants were requested to identify in two separate sessions, 10 real and 10 false Chinese ideograms presented randomly, trying to connect mentally with the research assistant sending correct suggestions at distance that is without any possibility to communicate with them by conventional means. As control condition, in one of these two sessions the helper did not send any suggestion although the receiver believed the contrary. In the session without suggestion, the hits’ mean score was 10.55; conversely, in the condition where a research assistant tried to suggest the correct identification at distance, the hits’ mean score was 11.33. Both a frequentist and a Bayesian statistical analysis approach, allows to reject the Null Hypothesis supporting the alternative one, that is, the possibility of mental connection at distance exploiting the non-local properties of the human mind. A second experiment aimed at increasing the efficiency of this mental connection taking into account task complexity and the level of Absorption of participants as a personality trait deemed favorable to non-local communication. However the results were similar to the first experiment. Although mental connection at distance seems feasible, variables which positively moderate this kind of communication are still to be identified.