The Relationships among Performance on a Prototype Indicator of Perceptual Defence/vigilance, Personality, and Extrasensory Perception

Two experiments compare pe~orlnance on a prototype indicator of perceptual defencelvtgilance with performance on other related measures of individual differences. On the basis of theoretical expectations and empirical findings, participants’ performance on the prototype indicator of perceptual defencelvigilance was predicted to relate to the personality factor of Neuroticism, and to performance on a forced-choice ESP task. In both experiments, perceptual defence/vigilance related as predicted to these measures: defensive participants had higher Neuroticism scores, and lower ESP scores than vigilant participants. Defensive participants also consistently showed fewer signs of mental health than vigilant participants on an exploratory self-report indicator of mental health. It is concluded that the prototype measure shows some promise as a measure of perceptual defence/vigilance, and that with further development it might have a future role in the enhancement of human performance under stress.