A Double-Slit Diffraction Experiment to Investigate Claims of Consciousness-Related Anomalies
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Plain English Summary
Can your mind mess with quantum physics? That was the bold question behind this experiment, which used a classic double-slit setup — where light passes through two tiny openings and creates a striped interference pattern — to test whether human intention could physically alter the pattern. Two labs tried it: York University in Canada and Princeton's famous PEAR lab. The results were a mixed bag. York's 74 test runs came up empty on the main question, though they found some weird secondary quirks — the data was more spread out than expected and skewed in an odd direction. Princeton's 20 runs showed a borderline positive effect, roughly matching what they'd seen in other mind-over-machine experiments. But here's the twist that really matters: after the experiments were done, researchers discovered the random fluctuations in their detector were caused by ordinary heat noise, not quantum-level photon randomness. That basically pulled the rug out from under the whole "consciousness collapses quantum waves" idea the experiment was built on. The device was really just a fancy random number generator, not a true quantum test.
Abstract
An experiment in which participants were asked to reduce the fringe contrast in a Young's double-slit interference pattern has been conducted independently at two laboratories using the same apparatus. Participants at York University were explicitly invited to exert their intentionality either to direct the photon flux preferentially through one path or the other, or to obtain spatial information about the division of the flux. Participants at Princeton University were invited simply to reduce the fringe contrast by any strategy they wished. Results from both laboratories (Z =- 0.481 and Z = 1.654 respectively) are discussed along with a description of earlier efforts to frame this experiment as a test of an extra-sensory channel for the acquisition of information.
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- Decision Augmentation Theory: Toward a Model of Anomalous Mental Phenomena — May, Edwin C (1995)
- Evidence for Consciousness-Related Anomalies in Random Physical Systems — Radin, Dean I (1989)
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Extended By
- Psychophysical Modulation of Fringe Visibility in a Distant Double-Slit Optical System — Radin, Dean (2016)
- Testing Nonlocal Observation as a Source of Intuitive Knowledge — Radin, Dean (2008)
- Observer Influence on Quantum Interference: Testing the von Neumann-Wigner Consciousness-Collapse Theory — Radin, Dean (2025)
- Does Consciousness Collapse the Wave-Packet? — Bierman, Dick J (2003)
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📋 Cite this paper
Ibison, Michael, Jeffers, Stanley (1998). A Double-Slit Diffraction Experiment to Investigate Claims of Consciousness-Related Anomalies. Journal of Scientific Exploration.
@article{ibison_jeffers_1998_double_slit,
title = {A Double-Slit Diffraction Experiment to Investigate Claims of Consciousness-Related Anomalies},
author = {Ibison, Michael and Jeffers, Stanley},
year = {1998},
journal = {Journal of Scientific Exploration},
}