6. EEG Analysis of Implicit Perception in External Qigong

Mikio Yamamoto, Masahiko Hirasawa, Hideyuki Kokubo, Kimiko Kawano^* and Tomoko Kokado
(^*Nippon Medical School, Tokyo)

Keywords: implicit perception, qigong, somatic sensation, EEG

We analyzed electroencephalograms (EEGs) of healthy volunteers who experienced external qigong without normal sensory transmission.

The short distance condition: a Chinese qigong master (sender), who claimed to emit external qi from his hands, put his right hand into a metal box, covered by a cloth, on a table. A receiver (healthy volunteers) was eye-masked and his/her hand was laid over the box without contact. A screen was placed between the sender and the receiver. The sender emitted external qi during a randomly selected half minute period in a continuous one minute period and the receiver attempted to perceive the time zone. In over 20 trials for the receivers' right/left hands, the receivers were unable to guess the correct sending time zone with any statistical significance. However, a statistically significant difference was observed on the alpha wave mean amplitude in receiver's EEGs between the sending and non-sending time zones at the corresponding region to their somatic sensory area in a period of 13 to 17 seconds from the start of the task.

The long distance condition (approximately 11 m): a Japanese qigong master (sender) and his pupil (receiver) were placed in two different rooms in a sensory-shielded state. The sender attempted to transmit external qi within a few seconds at a randomly selected time in a 80-second period. The receiver, who was seated in an electromagnetic shielded cage, attempted to perceive the transmission time and pushed a switch to record her guessed time. In over 30 trials, the receiver's guessed time was not statistically significant for the sending time. However, the analysis of the receiver's EEG from 20 seconds before to 20 seconds after the qi emission showed that a statistically significant increase of alpha wave mean amplitude at the C3 point occurred around 15 seconds after starting qi emission. The C3 point corresponds to the sensory area of the right hand in which the receiver held the switch.

We suggest that the receivers' EEG changes were caused by implicit perception. Additionally, response areas of EEG were inferred to be affected by the receivers' attention.

Publications:
1) Yamamoto M, Hirasawa M, Kokubo H, Kawano K, Kokado T, Hirata T and Yasuda N: J. Intl. Soc. Life Info. Sci., 15, 88-96, 1997
2) Yamamoto M, Kokado T, Hirasawa M, Kawano K, Kokubo H and Sakaida H: J. Intl. Soc. Life Info. Sci., 16, 274-283, 1998.
3) Yamamoto M, Hirasawa M, Kokado T, Kokubo K, Yamada T, Taniguchi J, Kawano K and Fukuda N: J. Intl. Soc. Life Info. Sci., 17, 191-197, 1999.