The relationship between lability and performance at intentional and non-intentional versions of an implicit PMIR-type task

A number of theories of psi such as Stanford’s psi-mediated instrumental response (PMIR) model suggest psi can function without a person’s awareness, and that their intent to exhibit psi may be counterproductive. However, few parapsychological studies have directly compared participants’ performance at intentional and nonintentional versions of equivalent tasks. This study sought to address this issue whilst exploring the role of lability, suggested by Stanford to be predictive of a person’s propensity to respond to extrasensory stimuli. 50 participants took part in both intentional and nonintentional versions of a 10-trial, binary, forced choice precognition task. A contingent outcome task system involving positive pictures as reward for hit trials and negative pictures as punishment for miss trials was administered on a trial-by-trial basis. Participants scored marginally fewer hits than the mean chance expectation in both versions of the task, with no tangible difference in their performance between tasks. Furthermore, no relationship was found between the number of precognitive hits they achieved and their scores on a composite psychometric measure of lability, nor its constituent elements. However, participants’ expectations that their luck could aid their performance, as well as their emotional reactivity, were positively related to their tacit psi scores.