Citation

Within this paper we report on the use of immersive virtual reality (IVR) as an experimental environment and medium for the study of telepathy. We argue that IVR has a number of advantages over ganzfeld work using static or dynamic stimuli, as well as telepathy studies using physical objects. Our own Telepathy Immersive Virtual Environment (TIVE) uses 3-dimensional computer graphics technology to generate artificial environments that afford real-time interaction and exploration in conjunction with head mounted displays (HMDs), sound, and instrumented data gloves that allow participants to interact with virtual objects. Here we report the results of a test of telepathic communication using TIVE. A total of 200 participants (88 males, 112 females, M age = 28.9, range 16 - 64 yrs, SD = 9.13) were tested in pairs, once as a sender and once as a receiver. This study did not find support for the psi hypothesis, either in terms of directional hitting or in a post hoc magnitude analysis, in which the outcomes were no different from what would be expected by chance. Suggestions for this outcome are discussed along with suggestions for further work.