You're so Psychic, Bet You Know This Podcast is About You

 

Two Harvard psychologists use neuroimaging to provide what some call the best evidence yet that extrasensory perception (or ESP) does not exist.

How fortunate it would be to predict your future, see things in other places, read minds… Yes, if we had ESP, think of the thousands we save not attending therapy.

But what if ESP were scientifically, once and for all, debunked?

Well two Harvard psychologists say they’ve published the most definitive evidence against ESP in this month’s Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

Their theory is that if ESP exists, subjects’ brains would respond differently to ESP-related stimuli than to non-ESP-related stimuli.

They studied three kinds of ESP with subjects inside an fMRI scanner: telepathy, clairvoyance and precognition.

Telepathic stimuli were photos shown simultaneously to both subjects and their close partners (like an identical twin). Clairvoyant stimuli were presented on a computer in separate room. Precognitive stimuli were shown to subjects at a later time.

Here’s the thing: pictures perceived through ESP, should spark a suppressed brain pattern – since, the brain reacts differently to previously seen stimuli, than it does to novel stimuli.

Alas researchers found no difference in the brain pattern between ESP and non-ESP stimuli.

Of course, getting a null result doesn’t confirm that ESP doesn’t exist somewhere…it just weakens the possibility.

I’m not throwing out my Ouija Board just yet.