ABSTRACT
In a previous paper, we reviewed early experimental attempts to assess subjects’ accuracy in consciously detecting when they are being watched or stared at by someone situated beyond the range of their conventional senses. We also reported new results of our own experiments in which a more “unconscious” autonomic nervous system reaction (spontaneous electrodermal activity) was used to assess accuracy of detection of staring (remote attention). In our experiments, one subject (the starer) directed full attention to another distant subject’s (staree’s) image on the monitor of a closed-circuit television system used to eliminate the possibility of subtle sensory cues. The staree’s spontaneous electrodermal activity, meanwhile, was monitored objectively by a computer system during randomly interspersed staring and nonstaring periods; the staree was blind regarding the number, timing, and sequencing of the two types of period. We found evidence for significant blind autonomic 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 the same starer who had participated in the earlier studies (t [15] = 2.08; p = .05, two-tailed; effect size r = .47), and the second involving 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 control condition (a “sham control”) in which the data were treated as they were in a true staring study, but staring did not, in fact, occur. We also found that the magnitude of the remote autonomic staring detection effect was significantly related to the starees’ degree of introversion (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) and to their degree of social avoidance and distress (social anxiety).
