If the Ouija board in fact taps our subconscious, then it is the
obvious tool to use to query that same subconscious. Here using just
that premise, an experiment was designed and a non random response
was gained. Thus opens the door to legions of directed experiments
whose results will have the power of been other than merely random.
The result itself may still be unsatisfactory, but any scientist who
has chased needles in haystacks soon learns to use a whole range of
odd informants so long as it can be done safely. Dowsing is one that
is well known that begs proper explanation.
There is a lot of work to be done and a lot of imagination to be
applied to the problem. However we have here demonstrated the
reality of the underlying effect itself and can now proceed with
confidence.
13:21 5 July 2012
Clare Wilson, medical
features editor
(Image: Jon Santa
Cruz/Rex Features )
Beloved of
spiritualists and bored teenagers on a dare, the Ouija board has long
been a source of entertainment, mystery and sometimes downright
spookiness. Now it could shine a light on the secrets of the
unconscious mind.
The Ouija, also known
as a talking board, is a wooden plaque marked with the words, "yes",
"no" and the letters of the alphabet. Typically a group of
users place their hands on a movable pointer , or "planchette",
and ask questions out loud. Sometimes the planchette signals an
answer, even when no one admits to moving it deliberately.
Believers think the
answer comes through from the spirit world. In fact, all the evidence
points to the real cause being the ideomotor effect, small muscle
movements we generate unconsciously.
That's why the Ouija
board has attracted the attention of psychologists at the University
of British Columbia in Canada. Growing evidence suggests
the unconscious plays a role in cognitive functions we usually
consider the preserve of the conscious mind.
Take
driving your car along a familiar route while planning your day. On
arrival, you realise you were not in conscious control of the car, it
was your "inner zombie", said Hélène Gauchou at
theAssociation for the Scientific Study of Consciousness
conference in Brighton, UK, this week. "How can we
communicate with that unconscious intelligence?"
Gauchou's approach is
to turn to the Ouija board. To keep things simple her team has just
one person with their finger on the planchette at a time. But the
ideomotor effect is maximised if you believe you are not responsible
for any movements - that's why Ouija board sessions are most
successful when used by a group. So the subject is told they will
be using the board with a partner. The subject is blindfolded and
what they don't know is that their so-called partner removes their
hands from the planchette when the experiment begins.
The technique worked,
at least with 21 out of 27 volunteers tested, reports Gauchou. "The
planchette does not move randomly around the board; it moves to yes
or no. It seems to move almost magically. None of them felt
responsible for the movement." In fact some subjects suspected
that their partner was really an actor - but they thought the actor
was deliberately moving the planchette, never suspecting they
themselves were the only ones touching it.
Goucher's team has not
yet used the technique to get new information about the unconscious,
but they have established that it seems to work, in principle. They
asked subjects to answer 'yes' or 'no' to general knowledge questions
using the Ouija board, and also asked them to answer the same
questions using the more orthodox method of typing on a computer
(unblindfolded). Participants were also asked whether they knew the
answer or were just guessing.
When using the
computer, if the subjects said they didn't know the answer to a
question, they got it right about half the time, as would be expected
by chance. But when using the Ouija, they got those questions right
65 per cent of the time - suggesting they had a subconscious inkling
of the right answer and the Ouija allowed that hunch to be expressed
(Consciousness and Cognition, DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2012.01.016).
The team now plan to
refine the technique, as a normal Ouija board can take too long to
deliver an answer - up to two minutes. "We're trying to develop
a reducted friction device," says Gauchou. She's even developing
a "Ouija app".
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