NEW INTERPRETATIONS OF ESP LITERATURE, A CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE DISPLACEMENT EFFECT (JULIE MILTON)

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 interviews.  This situation is not very different from a representa-
 tion by linear regression models which have shown to have consid-
 erable predictive power.  However, the linear regression formula
 does not make a lot of sense to the human expert.  Therefore, we
 have proposed elsewhere not only to use an ACLS type of learning
 system but also to use a learning system that is supposed to create
 a psychologically valid representation of the human expert's knowl-
 edge.
 The prototype learner.  The "prototype" model has been de-
 veloped by Rosch.   In contrast with linear regression models, the
 "prototype" model allows for nonmonotonic relations between the
 values of the attributes and the class determination.  So, apart
 from an implementation of a decision-tree building system a la ACLS,
 a system has been implemented that is capable of learning categor-
 ies as proposed in the Rosch model.  During the learn phase a
 training set of old cases, consisting of the values of the attributes
 and the resulting classification, are offered to the system.  The
 system learns which attributes contribute to which degree to the
 final classification decision.  After the learning phase new cases
 can be offered to the system which will calculate an overlap score
 of the new instance with the "prototype" of a class.
 Concluding remarks.      Current work by the present author
 using a similar knowledge-elicitation approach in the domain of
 psychodia gno sties is promising.  It appears that "intuitive" knowl-
 edge can be elicited with the proposed approach and implemented
 as a moderator of a primarily pattern-matching-based classification.
 NEW INTERPRETATIONS OF ESP LITERATURE*
 A CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE DISPLACEMENT EFFECT
 Julie Milton (Dept. of Psychology, University of Edinburgh,
 7 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9JZ, Scotland)**
 The "displacement effect" in ESP research refers to a situa-
 tion in which the percipient, instead of describing the intended
 target for a particular trial, describes some other experimental ma-
 terial.  Despite the fact that over 100 papers have dealt with some
 aspect of the displacement effect since the effect caught the general
 interest of parapsychologists in 1940, no exhaustive review of the
 displacement literature has appeared.  It was felt that such a re-
 view would be timely for a number of reasons, partly because the
 attitude of researchers these days to the apparent occurrence of
 displacement is generally one of irritation, whereas earlier research-
 ers reacted with a more positive (and hence possibly more produc-
 tive) interest; partly because recently some researchers have sug-
 gested that in the context of finding limits for psi, the circumstances
 under which displacement occurs and the extent to which displace-
 ment is a "deliberate" error or a genuine error on the part of the
 percipient may have some theoretical importance.  Another reason
 for a review would be to examine the characteristics of displacement
 as a phenomenon of interest in itself.
 In the past, researchers have explored two main lines of re-
 search with respect to displacement; the first has involved the pos-
 sibility of a relationship between scoring on targets of different.
 displacements, and the second, the possibility of a relationship be-
 tween displaced scoring and psychological and situational variables.
 Concerning the possibility of a relationship between scoring
 on targets of different displacements, there are a couple of poten-
 tially important statistical artifacts that apply to forced-choice
 studies which can give rise to the appearance of displacement
 *Chaired by Erlendur Haraldsson.
 **I am grateful to the Perrott-Warrick Studentship in Psychical
 Research for financial support during the writing of this paper.
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 when no displacement has taken place.  Firstly, extrachance scor-
 ing on the intended (0) target, combined with a tendency on the
 part of the percipient to call more or fewer doubles than chance,
 automatically gives the appearance of extrachance scoring on adja-
 cent (+1) and (-1) targets.  Secondly, the possibility that a per-
 cipient may be aware (by means of ESP) of the success or failure
 of his or her call, and that this knowledge may affect the frequency
 of local call repeats, gives rise to a possible artifact of (-1) (or
 [-2], [-3], etc.) extrachance scoring without extrachance scoring
 on the (0) target itself.   Given that these two artifacts could com-
 bine to produce a wide variety of scoring patterns across the dis-
 placed and intended targets, it is rarely possible to look simply at
 the scoring rates in a study and know whether any apparent dis-
 placement is real or artifactual.  Unfortunately, the vast majority
 of researchers seem to have been unaware of these artifacts, and
 so only those papers that included a careful analysis to rule out
 these artifacts were included in the section of the review that dealt
 with this aspect of displacement.
 Concerning the question of the possible relationship between
 displacement and psychological and situational variables, the review
 made use of the implicit model of displacement that seems to be taken
 for granted in the literature but never clearly outlined nor taken to
 its logical conclusion.  This model has displacement essentially as
 evidence of ESP meant for the target but that was for some reason
 misdirected.  The implications of this model, as the author has
 interpreted it, are that certain variables (usually assumed to be
 affectively negative) cause displacement, but that once displaced,
 scoring relates to the remaining noncausal variables in the same
 way as nondisplaced scoring would have done.  For example, frus-
 tration might cause displacement (and thus generally be associated
 with high displacement scores), while anxiety would be associated
 with low displacement scores and freedom from anxiety with high
 displacement scores (assuming that anxiety would normally relate to
 target scoring in this way).  Paradoxically, therefore, affectively
 negative values would be associated with both high and low dis-
 placement scoring, according to whether they were causative or not.
 This being the case, the author felt it appropriate to review this
 area by taking in isolation each psychological or situational variable
 that had been examined with respect to displacement and to look for
 consistency in the relationship of displacement to these variables.
 In this section of the review, all those papers that had examined
 the relationship between displaced scoring and some such variable
 were reviewed, regardless of whether the authors had ruled out
 artifactual explanations for the displacement in their studies, since
 it was felt that the best use of this section was probably as a
 pointer to good starting points for future research rather than as
 a definitive indicator of variables that truly relate to displacement.
 The great majority of the literature reviewed dealt with
 forced-choice studies; only two free-response studies passed the
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 criteria for inclusion in the study (i.e. , that the author had car-
 ried out a statistical test for displacement or had tried to relate
 its occurrence to some other variable).  Material published between
 1938 and 1985 was included from JSPR, PSPR, JASPR, JP, EJP, and
 other journals, if important.
 Although the results of over 60 studies were included in the
 review, the most striking finding was the lack of consistency of
 relationship between apparently displaced scoring and any other
 variable, to the extent that the question naturally arises as to
 whether displacement is a real effect or not.  In addition to the
 lack of consistency already noted, a number of problems made this
 area of research virtually impossible to evaluate in this regard.
 First was the very widespread problem of potential statistical arti-
 facts mentioned earlier; in the author's opinion, it would be possi-
 ble to account in these terms for the displacement in most studies
 reported.  Second was the problem of post-hoc analysis; many of
 the papers reviewed came from an era of research in which journals
 were much less strict than they are nowadays in insisting that
 authors make a clear distinction between planned and post-hoc test-
 ing.  Since displacement seems to have been a side issue for most
 researchers, the extent to which displacement analyses were carried
 out after someone had glanced through the data may be consider-
 able.  Problems of multiple analysis are also present in many papers.
 Finally, a lack of consistency in the choice of variables examined in
 relationship to displacement also makes it difficult for a strong case
 for the effect to emerge.
 Because of these problems in evaluating the body of literature
 on displacement, it is the author's opinion that no strong evidence
 for the displacement effect exists; this could be either because the
 effect does not exist or because the evaluative problems outlined
 above have stood in the way of discovering it.  In the latter case,
 it is suggested that a more productive rationale for future research
 would involve analysis for statistical artifacts; a clear distinction
 between post-hoc and planned analyses; correction for multiple anal-
 ysis; and the consistent study of a few well-chosen variables with
 respect to displacement, coupled with an awareness of the kind of
 statistical analyses that would be appropriate according to whether
 the variable might be causative or correlative.
 Few, if any, key parapsychological concepts stand or fall
 depending on whether displacement exists or not.  If it does exist,
 it is hoped that research along the lines suggested will reveal in-
 teresting information about displacement, along with possible methods
 of preventing its occurrence in studies where it would be unwelcome;
 if it doesn't exist, then the sooner we turn our attention and limited
 resources to another area, the better.
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