Sensation, Perception, and Extrasensory Perception

Studies in regards to extrasensory perception have been subjected to marginalization due to a lacking of theoretical support, but not a lack of repeatable empirical evidence.

Extrasensory perception is not easily comprehensible via the traditional understandings of perception and cognition, but more comprehensive physics (i.e. quantum mechanics) may open the door to more comprehensive ESP models.

Since the mid-19th century, experiments have been conducted in order to investigate into the nature of ESP. Today, utilizing modern experimental methods and meta-analytical techniques, despite conventional neuroscientific assumptions, ESP has been proven to exist.

Parapsychologists have, and continue to justify this conclusion via a class of homogeneous experiments reported in 108 publications and conducted (from 1974-2008), by numerous laboratories across the globe.

Subsets of the data have been subjected to six meta-analyses, showing positive effects, resulting in the provision of unequivocal evidentiary support for an independent repeatable ESP effect.

So why has this substantial empirical evidence not been mentioned on every news station and in every newspaper worldwide? ESP has eluded the acceptance of the scientific community for two primary reasons:

1. The belief among the academic mainstream that that such empirical evidentiary support does not exist.

2. The belief that while some evidentiary support may exist, it lacks repeatability, and therefore is not amendable to scientific inquiry.

However, these long held beliefs are misguided, as such evidence does exist and is, and has been for quite some time, repeatable.

Extrasensory perception (ESP) is defined as the reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses, but sensed by the mind.

To comprehend accurately what extrasensory perception is and is not, first one has to define and analyze both sensation and perception. Sensation and perception are defined as stages of sensory processing in human and animal systems.

These senses vary in modality such as vision, auditory, etc. They are stages classified as psychological, rather than anatomical or physiological. This is because processes in the brain affect the perception of a stimulus.

Includes pertaining to these subject areas are illusions such as motion aftereffect, color constancy, depth perception, and auditory illusions. In addition, sensation is a function of the low-level biochemical and neurological events in which begin with the impinging of a stimulus upon the receptor cells of a sensory organ (e.g. eyes, ears, skin, etc.).

Perception on the other hand, includes the mental processes or states that are reflected in statements such as "I see a rectangular red vase," whereby representing awareness or the comprehension of the practical cause of the sensory input.

Otherwise stated, sensation is defined as the first stages in the functioning of senses to represent stimuli from environs, while perception is defined as a higher brain function regarding the interpretation of events and objects in environs. A sensory system is a component of the nervous system responsible for processing sensory information.

They consist of sensory receptors (sensory nerve endings), neural pathways (connecting one component of the nervous system to another), and components of the brain involved in sensory perception. Commonly recognized sensory systems are those for vision, hearing, somatic sensation (touch), taste, and olfaction (smell).

These systems are transducers from the physical environment to the environment of the mind. However, while it was once assumed that extrasensory perception is the result of an unknown sensory organ, evidence is contrary to sensory models.

Sensory systems code for four features of detectable change whether the changes are internal or external. These four features of stimuli include type or modality, intensity, location, and duration. A sensory modality is a type of physical phenomenon that can be 'sensed.'

These include the sense of temperature, taste, pressure, sound, etc, and the type of sensory receptor activated by a stimulus plays a fundamental role in coding the sensory modality. The senses are the physiological capacities within human beings that provide inputs for perception, but such an input has not been found for extrasensory perception.

Interdisciplinary research efforts encompassing subjects such as neuroscience, cognitive psychology, the philosophy of perception, and parapsychology, study the senses and their operations, classifications, and theories.

Their studies dedicate one specific, physical sensory system or organ to each sense, but in the case of extrasensory perception, such a dedication has yet to be made. Such a dedication cannot be made until a specific physiological capacity can be identified as an input provider for extrasensory perception.

However, current research suggests that information may be received via the body's biophotonic field (input) with the central nervous system as its path to perception. Perception is the process through which we attain awareness or an understanding of sensory information. What one perceives is a result of interactions between past experiences and the interpretation of that which is currently being perceived.

In regards to extrasensory perception, extrasensory information in which is received via out biophotonic field, is assumed to mediate through the central nervous system and up through our long-term memory, which is where our past experiences reside. When extrasensory information enters the long-term memory, the brain attempts to utilize past experiences to interpret the information received.

Once the information has been interpreted, the interpretation is the either subconsciously, or potentially consciously perceived (i.e. the individual becomes aware of the information to some degree).

(Adapted from the A Quantum Approach Textbook Series - by Dr. Theresa M. Kelly.) (Adapted from the paper "Extrasensory Perception and Quantum Models of Cognition" by Patrizio E. Tressoldi, Lance Storm, and Dean Radin, Journal of NeuroQuantology) Copyright 2011 - Dr. Theresa M. Kelly - All Rights Reserved - www.QPsychics.com