Experimental parapsychology has developed and rallied around several standardized experimental protocols to test for the existence of psi in the general population: presentiment, ganzfeld, remote viewing, and anomalous retroactive influence. By using these protocols, evidence for psi continues to emerge. However, not every research participant who takes part in these standardized psi tests shows an effect. The consilience of research into differences in individual standardized non-psi test results, biological responses to medications and foods, cognitive and decision-making styles, personality types, chronotypes, and intrinsic and explicit beliefs demonstrates that one-size-fits-all options are rarely useful for humans. And while parapsychologists have made significant advances in understanding the factors that can impact laboratory psi experiments including target optimization, experimenter effects, participant selection, and experimental environment, the common practice continues to involve giving the same tests to all participants regardless of their individual differences. I propose that task optimization, that is, the customization of psi tasks based on the cognitive styles and other factors of the participant, may be an additional relevant factor impacting the results of laboratory psi experiments. A series of studies has been designed examining this issue by developing customized testing activities (games) that meet the needs of participants’ specific fundamental cognitive styles. Psi researchers may be leaving data and evidence on the table by not employing task optimization and this highly targeted approach may capture psi functioning in populations that do not typically perform well on standardized psi tests.

Bio: Mark Boccuzzi has spent much of his career at the intersection of science, technology, education, and interactive visual arts. For more than 10 years he has been working to apply these disciplines to the study of consciousness and psi (telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, and mind-matter interactions). He is the co-founder of the Windbridge Institute, LLC, which is dedicated to the study of the non-local nature of consciousness as it applies to mindfulness, creativity, intuition, and intention. Mark’s current work applies virtual reality, augmented reality, deep machine learning, and artificial intelligence to instrumental transcommunication and psi research. Mark is the author of Visualizing Intention: Art Informed by Science.

Recorded at the Society for Scientific Exploration Conference in Broomfield, Colorado 2019.

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Published on November 29, 2019