The University of British Columbia
UBC - A Place of Mind
The University of British Columbia
UBC News
  • Home
  • News Tips
  • Arts & Humanities
  • Business, Law & Society
  • Science, Health & Technology
  • University News
  • Contacts
  • Services
    • Services for Journalists
    • Services for Faculty
Home / 2012 / June / 06 / Mysteries of unconsciousness
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

Mysteries of unconsciousness

Jun 6, 2012 - by Basil Waugh

The Ouija board as a window into our “second intelligence”

Ouija boards and magic tricks may sound like unconventional science, but a pioneering team of UBC psychologists are using these tools to unlock the mysteries of the human mind.

“Most people think they have complete control of their minds, but they are wrong,” says Ron Rensink, an associate professor of computer science and psychology. “The truth is, we perform thousands of unconscious mental and physical tasks every day.”

These “mindless” acts range from such basics as breathing and dreaming to others with life or death implications, says Rensink, who joined UBC in 2000 after conducting post-doctoral research at Harvard’s Vision Sciences Laboratory.

“Driving is a perfect example,” he says. “In many cases, we are navigating through dangerous situations, thinking only about what we want for dinner. We get home and often remember very little about the trip.”

Rensink belongs to a team that recently received $1.25 million from Boeing to design visualization systems to help people quickly analyze large amounts of data. His ultimate goal is to advance our knowledge of unconscious cognition and perception to help make planes, cars, homes and consumer products safer and more intuitive to use.

But before that can happen, Rensink says researchers need more ways to study our unconscious processes. “As a field of research, the unconscious is still very much ‘terra incognita’— the iceberg largely beneath the surface,” he says. “One of the big challenges, I think, is that we need to develop more techniques for investigating it.”

With that in mind, Rensink and postdoctoral researcher Hélène Gauchou recently completed a study using Ouija boards. Their research, to be published in the June issue of Consciousness and Cognition, not only demonstrates the intellectual power lying beyond our consciousness, but also represents an important advance in identifying how to access and study people’s unconscious minds.

They found that, when asked to answer questions they think they don’t know, people give significantly better responses (65 per cent accuracy) when answering “yes” or “no” with a Ouija board compared to answering verbally (50 per cent accuracy). When participants believed they knew the answers, both types of response scored almost identically.

“These surprising findings suggest we have a powerful ‘second intelligence’ resting beyond our conscious minds that can be accessed under the right conditions,” says Gauchou, a native of France whose only previous exposure to Ouija boards was through American movies. “We may believe we don’t know an answer consciously, but actually have the answer right there in our subconscious. Maybe we heard it on the radio, but weren’t really paying attention.”

Study participants were paired with partners, blindfolded and instructed to simply follow the direction of the Ouija’s moving planchette. However, when questions were asked, their partners were instructed to remove their hands from the planchette, meaning that participants were playing alone.

According to Gauchou, the study triggered “ideomotor actions” in participants, movement unaccompanied by conscious thought—similar to driving or washing the dishes – which provides greater access to our unconsciousness. The research team, which also includes UBC Electrical and Computer Engineering Prof. Sid Fels, is now exploring how to improve upon the Ouija board by creating a computerized version.

In another study, recently published in Perception journal, Rensink and SFU researcher Jay Olson explored the psychology of card tricks to better understand unconscious thought processes. While people may think they have a free choice of any card, their study suggests otherwise.

For example, when asked to name a playing card, they found most people chose only one of four: the ace, queen or king of hearts, or the ace of spades. When asked to visualize a card, people are twice as likely to pick the ace of hearts, they found. “We hope these studies will help to give us a better understanding of memory, decision-making and awareness,” Rensink says.

Learn more about UBC psychology research at www.psych.ubc.ca.

Find other stories about: arts, research

“Our findings suggest we have a powerful ‘second intelligence’ resting beyond our conscious minds.

News Tips

News Tips

Looking for story ideas?
Check out our latest News Tips!

Find UBC Experts

An information source that gives journalists access to UBC’s expertise.

Making a Difference

COVID-19

Learn how UBC is rallying to support Canada's response to COVID-19.

Explore

  • Arts & Humanities
  • Business, Law & Society
  • Science, Health & Technology
  • University News
  • Q&As
  • Media Advisories
  • Latest News

Tweets by @ubcnews

My Tweets
Subscribe & receive news by e-mail View UBC's Okanagan News Room
    
Public Affairs
310 - 6251 Cecil Green Park Road
Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z1
Tel 604 822 6397
Fax 604 822 2684
Website http://news.ubc.ca
Email public.affairs@ubc.ca
Find us on
    
Back to top
The University of British Columbia
  • Emergency Procedures |
  • Terms of Use |
  • Copyright |
  • Accessibility
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.