(Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. ii. pp. 3, 4.)
Further experiments in this direction are much to be desired. But apart from the difficulty above referred to, experiments of the kind are liable to be tedious and inconclusive because of the inability of most persons to discriminate accurately between one taste and another, when the guidance of all other senses is lacking. To conduct such experiments to a successful issue, it would probably be necessary that the percipients should have some preliminary training to enable them to distinguish by taste alone between various salts and pharmaceutical preparations.
Transference of Pains.
Experiments in the transference of pains are not attended with the same difficulties, nor open to the same evidential objections; and some interesting trials of this kind with one of the same percipients, Miss R., met with a fair amount of success. The experiments were carried on at intervals, interspersed with experiments of other kinds, by Mr. Guthrie at Liverpool during nine months in 1884 and 1885. The percipient on each occasion was blindfolded and seated with her back towards the rest of the party, who each pinched or otherwise injured themselves in the same part of the body at the same time. The agents in these experiments—the whole series of which is here recorded—were three or more of the following:—Mr. Guthrie, Professor Herdman, Dr. Hicks, Dr. Hyla Greves, Mr. R. C. Johnson, F.R.A.S., Mr. Birchall, Miss Redmond, and on one occasion another lady. The results are given in the following table:—
No. 2.—By MR. GUTHRIE AND OTHERS.
1.—Back of left hand pricked. Rightly localised.
2.—Lobe of left ear pricked. Rightly localised.
3.—Left wrist pricked. "Is it in the left hand?" pointing to the back near the little finger.
4.—Third finger of left hand tightly bound round with wire. A lower joint of that finger was guessed.
5.—Left wrist scratched with pins. "Is it in the left wrist, like being scratched?"
6.—Left ankle pricked. Rightly localised.
7.—Spot behind left ear pricked. No result.
8.—Right knee pricked. Rightly localised.
9.—Right shoulder pricked. Rightly localised.
10.—Hands burned over gas. "Like a pulling pain ... then tingling, like cold and hot alternately," localised by gesture only.
11.—End of tongue bitten. "Is it the lip or the tongue?"
12.—Palm of left hand pricked. "Is it a tingling pain in the left hand here?" placing her finger on the palm of the left hand.
13.—Back of neck pricked. "Is it a pricking of the neck?"
14.—Front of left arm above elbow pricked. Rightly localised.
15.—Spot just above left ankle pricked. Rightly localised.
16.—Spot just above right wrist pricked. "I am not quite sure, but I feel a pain in the right arm, from the thumb upwards to above the wrist."
17.—Inside of left ankle pricked. Outside of left ankle guessed.
18.—Spot beneath right collar-bone pricked. The exactly corresponding spot on the left side guessed.
19.—Back hair pulled. No result.
20.—Inside of right wrist pricked. Right foot guessed.
(Proc. S.P.R., vol. iii. pp. 424-452.)
Transference of Sounds.
It is noteworthy that there is little experimental evidence for the transmission of an auditory impression. Occasionally, in trials with names and cards the nature of the mistakes made has seemed to indicate audition, as when, e.g., three is given for Queen or ace for eight. But obviously a long series of experiments and a long series of mistakes would be necessary to afford material for any conclusion. Sometimes a percipient has stated that he heard the name of the thing thought of; as, for instance, in a case recorded in Chapter V., where the percipient "heard" the word gloves before "seeing" a vision of them. But such cases appear to be rare. Experiments with a view to test the transmission of actual sounds could of course only be carried out under special conditions, of which one would be the separation of the agent from the percipient by a considerable intervening space—and this condition is, of itself, found to interfere with success. Some evidence, indeed, of a quasi-experimental character for the transference of musical sounds at a distance will be given in a later chapter (Chapter V., No. 33). Experiments with imagined sounds appear to have been rarely tried, or at least, successful results have rarely been recorded.[16] Occasionally indeed experimenters have put on record that in thinking of an object they have mentally repeated the name of the object as well as pictured the object itself, and there are a few cases where the general idea of the object thought of appears to have reached the percipient before the outlines of the form, which may possibly be explained as due to the reception of an auditory before a visual impression.[17]