No-Touch Knockouts - what's the deal?

[tsig]

I believe you're writing off the ideomotor effect as "power of suggestion" without looking into the research done on the effect of suggestion on involuntary muscle controls.

I think you have a point in that we can't be so quick to write things off without scientific research but at the same time, don't be so quick to write off what research has been done on people's expectations and muscle control.

I would recommend that you check out Ray Hyman's "How People are Fooled By the Ideomotor Effect" http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/ideomotor.html for a very clear look at how it works and why.

"honest, intelligent people can unconsciously engage in muscular activity that is consistent with their expectations" (Hyman 1999).

They also show that suggestions that can guide behavior can be given by subtle clues (Hyman 1977).

The MMA guy didn't care about suggestions he just punched the "old master" silly.

Are you trying to say there's something to the "no touch knockouts" besides people fooling themselves?

 

[bookitty]

The point isn't to say that it's not social pressure, but that's not a great answer on its own. I use social pressure too, as well as a whole bag of other tricks, but people don't suddenly feel numb to pain or go into spasm or whatever just because they don't want to make you feel embarrassed. Also, it seems to me that it works on everyone, but people will justify it based on whatever they believe in. I know of one nonbeliever who said that she fell (and possibly blacked out) because I punched her, but it was clear that it was just a little push - I imagine that she had no other way to rationalize it.

Where on the body was this push?

 

[AaronAlexander]

I believe you're writing off the ideomotor effect as "power of suggestion" without looking into the research done on the effect of suggestion on involuntary muscle controls.

I think you have a point in that we can't be so quick to write things off without scientific research but at the same time, don't be so quick to write off what research has been done on people's expectations and muscle control.

I would recommend that you check out Ray Hyman's "How People are Fooled By the Ideomotor Effect" http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/ideomotor.html for a very clear look at how it works and why.

"honest, intelligent people can unconsciously engage in muscular activity that is consistent with their expectations" (Hyman 1999).

They also show that suggestions that can guide behavior can be given by subtle clues (Hyman 1977).

I actually wrote a book on doing suggestion tricks with the pendulum. I've also done my share of muscle reading and have some pretty creepy ideomotor illusions such as this one (on the market in a couple of months, I imagine).

BUT

That was an awesome article that I hadn't seen before. It covered a lot of ground in not a lot of area. Thanks for that. Still, my experience is that ideomotor alone doesn't cause sudden spasms or loss of consciousness. I definitely think it's a factor in a lot of sensations involved with this sort of phenomena, though.

Where on the body was this push?

On the forehead. The point isn't that I didn't just push her over in a way where she stood a chance of staying up. I'm not personally a believer in Qi or the holy spirit, so I don't leave things to chance. The point is that she didn't believe it would work and she still fell like a sack of fertilizer and explained it in a much less pleasant way than people who believed in it. And it was definitely not a touch that would normally knock someone out, even though there were some confusion techniques along with it.

 

[Trent Wray]

I appreciate the comments so far. I especially liked the link to the other thread, TW, it was very helpful.

This paper I'm working on is an academic one for publication, putting the phenomena in context based on my research but also my experience. It'd be helpful if people could point to where they are getting their ideas so I can go there and see for myself. The problem that I see is that there's almost no literature on this other than people going "ah, it's just suggestion", and I think as skeptics you should all find to be pretty insufficient. First, how many people drop $10,000 on seeing a psychic surgeon, then suddenly realize their error when someone goes "ah, it's just a magic trick"? Second, the actual dynamics of suggestion are so poorly understood that it's like someone questioning Newton about why the planets moved in the way they did and him just going "ah, it's physics." That's not wrong, but it sure isn't a satisfying answer unless you agree with him before he opens his mouth.

I think that as skeptics we should really stop using suggestion as a way to unquestioningly dismiss things or and start thinking about dynamics of suggestion. To me it's kind of like the way that fundamentalists see something odd like hypnosis and go "oh, well that's clearly Satan", because Satan becomes a catch-all for everything that they don't understand.

As I've said, that guy in the video is me. I've done it in a university setting. Often people will tell me that the last thing that they remember is me sticking out my hand, then they wake up on the floor, or they remember feeling like they've been flooded with happiness (Or whatever. You can suggest what they will be flooded with.)

The point isn't to say that it's not social pressure, but that's not a great answer on its own. I use social pressure too, as well as a whole bag of other tricks, but people don't suddenly feel numb to pain or go into spasm or whatever just because they don't want to make you feel embarrassed. Also, it seems to me that it works on everyone, but people will justify it based on whatever they believe in. I know of one nonbeliever who said that she fell (and possibly blacked out) because I punched her, but it was clear that it was just a little push - I imagine that she had no other way to rationalize it.

Anyway, I don't mean to rant, but I think that we could up the level of discussion here a bit. Anyone can write things off by finding one contradictory theory that is consonant with what they already believe. The point of gathering ideas as to what is going on and collecting similar examples is to have a range of situations from which to draw common and reproducible aspects of the phenomenon and to discuss (in specifics) what's already out there by way of explanation. Does anyone have anything that would add to that?

I honestly think that if you want to nail down specifically the cause of this phenomena, you need to have more data than just "seeing" the experience, or even going through it or attempting to cause it.

I would suggest vital signs, before and after, be taken ... at a minimum. Perhaps even hours before. Testing for various chemical releases, possibly. Performing PET scans in motion, if it's possible. Monitoring brain wave activity, etc and so forth. IOW .... anything that could possibly show trends and/or changes in the body before, during, and after ... and possibly delineating what sections of the brain are responsible for the responses, yada yada. In other words, dissect it medically as much as necessary to gather more than enough data to reflect the underlying mechanisms responsible.

Otherwise, I think the best people can hope for in understanding the mechanism and origins are by speculating on psychological factors and inferrances (sp) from similar reactions in other circumstances (i.e. ideomotor response, etc).

 

[AaronAlexander]

Ok, what's your explanation?

For me the book is not closed. Also, it depends on whether you mean the dynamics of suggestion or what is happening mentally during the knockout - I think that they may be different in this case.

One of the more promising explanations for the subjective experience of it is that it might be kind of like the way Oliver Sacks explains those falling dreams as you fall asleep:

....without any intrinsic meaning or motive, they may be given meaning and context, turned into acts, by an instantly improvised dream. Thus the jerk may be associated with a dream of tripping, or stepping over a precipice, lunging forward to catch a ball, and so on. Such dreams may be extremely vivid, and have several “scenes.” Subjectively, they appear to start before the jerk, and yet presumably the entire dream mechanism is stimulated by the first, preconscious perception of the jerk. All of this elaborate restructuring of the time occurs in a second or less. [excerpt from an article in the New Yorker]

I'd love it if someone who knew more could comment on that - I haven't the background to do much but take his word for it. Beautifully fits my experiences, though.

Like I said I'm still not sure about how it all works, but based on my experience we should consider an answer where 1) it doesn't involve them just faking, 2) it doesn't involve people being of weak mind (I won't even get into 'suggestible' personality correlates because every shred of evidence I found makes it clear that there is no such thing) 3) involves familiar psychological processes as much as possible. I think that the stuff that I've done really casts doubt on typical notions of suggestion/hypnosis, though, so a good answer may mean amending some ideas surrounding those processes.

 

[AaronAlexander]

I honestly think that if you want to nail down specifically the cause of this phenomena, you need to have more data than just "seeing" the experience, or even going through it or attempting to cause it.

I would suggest vital signs, before and after, be taken ... at a minimum. Perhaps even hours before. Testing for various chemical releases, possibly. Performing PET scans in motion, if it's possible. Monitoring brain wave activity, etc and so forth. IOW .... anything that could possibly show trends and/or changes in the body before, during, and after ... and possibly delineating what sections of the brain are responsible for the responses, yada yada. In other words, dissect it medically as much as necessary to gather more than enough data to reflect the underlying mechanisms responsible.

Otherwise, I think the best people can hope for in understanding the mechanism and origins are by speculating on psychological factors and inferrances (sp) from similar reactions in other circumstances (i.e. ideomotor response, etc).

I'm up for this. All we need is repeatable phenomena and I have repeated this dozens of time. A lot of accounts like the ones by Mark Haville and Phillip Foster (some of the few to take a swing at this effect as far as I know) make it seem like something that seems to be inseparable from its ritual environment, but I know this not to be the case. It can be done almost instantly under nearly any condition, so long as I can control a few things. If anyone wants to study, I'll be your soulwacker.

 

[CKava]

For me the book is not closed. Also, it depends on whether you mean the dynamics of suggestion or what is happening mentally during the knockout - I think that they may be different in this case.

When you say the book is not closed do you mean that you believe that there is a chance that you are transmitting someone unknown force that is knocking the other person out?

Like I said I'm still not sure about how it all works, but based on my experience we should consider an answer where 1) it doesn't involve them just faking, 2) it doesn't involve people being of weak mind (I won't even get into 'suggestible' personality correlates because every shred of evidence I found makes it clear that there is no such thing) 3) involves familiar psychological processes as much as possible. I think that the stuff that I've done really casts doubt on typical notions of suggestion/hypnosis, though, so a good answer may mean amending some ideas surrounding those processes.

I think looking for a single explanation for all cases is futile. Some will likely involve deliberate fraud, some will involve suggestion, some will involve social pressure and so on. I mean I think its quite obvious that someone with strong religious beliefs, who is emotional and standing on a stage in front of thousands of other believers will likely be feeling a lot of (unconscious and conscious) pressure to behave as expected. Similarly someone who has devoted months or years to a particular martial arts teacher and witnessed the teacher 'knocking out' other students is very likely to expect to experience something when the master demonstrates his abilities on him.

As regards there being no such thing as people with 'suggestible' personalities, what do you mean? Has your research lead you to believe that there is no such thing as fantasy prone individuals or do you simply mean that you don't think such explanations are sufficient in the case of one touch knockouts?

In relation to your experiences, what are you actually doing? Are you taking people up in front of an audience? Do the people know what to expect? Are you actually touching those involved?

The bottom line with no touch knockouts is that they don't seem to work outside of very specific settings or with non-compliant partners. Volunteers, friends and random members of the public may have unusual experiences if you try and perform a 'no touch knockout' on them but any theatrical display well likely envoke a response given the right setting.

 

[TheSkepticCanuck]

Here is another video about this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yx2RZoi7hY&playnext_from=TL&videos=ix79QNxxWo0&feature=grec

 

[AaronAlexander]

I'm sorry for the long post, but there's so many good questions. If it's too long, just skip down to the bold text.

When you say the book is not closed do you mean that you believe that there is a chance that you are transmitting someone unknown force that is knocking the other person out?

I think it would take a lot to convince me that it's an 'energy' that corresponds to what people like the martial artists or signs and wonders people believe in. Nothing that I have seen points to this, everything that I've seen points to something psychological. The question is what is the nature of the psychological phenomena, because saying that something is psychological doesn't narrow it as much as a lot of people seem to assume.

I think looking for a single explanation for all cases is futile. [etc]

Absolutely right, but sort of not really. Looking for one source of nutrition is absolutely futile for explaining the phenomena of good health, but studying key factors gives you a lot of insight. I use all the things that you mention as factors, but it's hard to tell which ones work and for what reason. When I have such a clear and reproducible effect, though, it gets easier to isolate.

As regards there being no such thing as people with 'suggestible' personalities, what do you mean? Has your research lead you to believe that there is no such thing as fantasy prone individuals or do you simply mean that you don't think such explanations are sufficient in the case of one touch knockouts?

There are fantasy-prone personalities, but as they probably make up less than 5% of the population, and so my odds of having - by chance - only done it with fantasy-prone people is not great. The overwhelming evidence seems to be that there isn't such a thing as a 'suggestible' personality that can be discerned by anything but how they respond to suggestion, and typical suggestion tests do not correspond strongly with fantasy-prone personality so far as I know. From my experience, 'suggestible personality' is one of those self-serving ideas that people use to counter-position so that they can put themselves in the 'that won't work on me' category (which, in my experience, pretty much dooms them to surprise on that count). In The Practice of Hypnotism, perhaps the most authoritative book on such a difficult subject as hypnosis, there is a really good and extensive discussion about the problem of judging susceptibility, if you are interested.

In relation to your experiences, what are you actually doing? Are you taking people up in front of an audience? Do the people know what to expect? Are you actually touching those involved?

They always know what to expect, even if they don't believe it will happen. Sometimes I touch them, sometimes I don't just like in the video.

The bottom line with no touch knockouts is that they don't seem to work outside of very specific settings or with non-compliant partners. Volunteers, friends and random members of the public may have unusual experiences if you try and perform a 'no touch knockout' on them but any theatrical display well likely envoke a response given the right setting.

My point is that those settings are surprisingly easy to create, and can be done in seconds with people who (at least by self-report before hand) don't believe you. As I said, I have done well without many of the conditions that we typically associate with such 'miracles', and it becomes clear to me that the relevant factors are probably not well understood yet. But on top of that, saying the conditions under which it takes place is only part of it, and I think that the subjective experience is so wild that it's worth looking into.

If nothing else, it's the most badass party trick you've ever seen. But I think the practical applications are by far more important, not the least these three:

1) The treatment of symptoms. I feel like I have shown that these effects can help to lessen symptoms in people who don't believe in crazy **** as well as those who do (in my research faith healing pretty clearly deals well with pain, even though it does nothing for the underlying biomedical causes. Why should people who give $ to Benny Hinn be the only ones to benefit?)
2) To put the phenomena into perspective. Like I said, it's pretty hard to see something as crazy as Hinn knocking over an auditorium full of people without being impressed, and our explanations kind of suck, frankly. I think it's more likely that this is closer to affecting someone at a distance by saying "hey, I want a divorce you ugly dumb bitch" than with chi power, but I can't prove it yet.
3) Shooting people over with chi or with God is intensely legitimizing, and some ******* is out there ripping people off and "curing" them of cancer while only making the pain stop. Doesn't that bother you? I could teach Richard Dawkins to do the same thing, without gospel music. That's not to say that all practitioners are bad, but I am coming to the conclusion that the best practitioners are the ones who are willing con artists.

Plus I just think it's plain fascinating that the mind can do this, and on that alone it's worth looking into.

 

[Trent Wray]

I'm up for this. All we need is repeatable phenomena and I have repeated this dozens of time. A lot of accounts like the ones by Mark Haville and Phillip Foster (some of the few to take a swing at this effect as far as I know) make it seem like something that seems to be inseparable from its ritual environment, but I know this not to be the case. It can be done almost instantly under nearly any condition, so long as I can control a few things. If anyone wants to study, I'll be your soulwacker.

Well if soulwackers are involved you're going for an automatic NC-17 rating

 

[D'rok]

Fess up. You do this to get chicks, don't you.

Pretty smoove, bro.

 

[chainlink]

Even among the people who appear to be affected by this "No-Touch Knockout" phenomenon, it should not be too difficult to test. You could start by blindfolding the person.

 

[MattusMaximus]

In martial arts, one of the goofiest proponents of the "no-touch knockout" woo is George Dillman. Here's a short video on what happened when Dillman's star student tried this nonsense on a skeptic and Dillman's lame attempt to rationalize the results away



The sad thing is that I think he has actually fooled himself into believing his own "chi whammy" nonsense. And I used to respect this man...

 

[AaronAlexander]

Even among the people who appear to be affected by this "No-Touch Knockout" phenomenon, it should not be too difficult to test. You could start by blindfolding the person.

I've already tested this. It works beautifully as long as you're a sneaky bastard. That isn't really the point.

In martial arts, one of the goofiest proponents of the "no-touch knockout" woo is George Dillman. Here's a short video on what happened when Dillman's star student tried this nonsense on a skeptic and Dillman's lame attempt to rationalize the results away

The sad thing is that I think he has actually fooled himself into believing his own "chi whammy" nonsense. And I used to respect this man...

I love that video so much, from the Chi is a radio wave to the alternating toes, to that priceless expression in his face when he says "I don't know if I should say this on camera..."

 

[the_bunkologist]

Thanks for that video AaronAlexander, very cool. Can you say a bit about your technique? I mean, how you managed to get a psych prof to topple over in front of a class? That's damned impressive. I would have expected that context to strongly inhibit dramatic physical reactions like that.

 

[JoeyDonuts]

There's another video around of one of Dillman's disciples getting checked out by a local TV station. They take him to a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu school and have him demonstrate his KO technique on the students, with predictable results. Same things you always see with these guys...Hilarious rationalizations about why it didn't work ("he must have had one toe pointing up and the other one pointing down") and a whole cadre of young students absolutely in awe of him who swallow every thing that he says without question.

 

[Folly]

I'm frequently on the UofA campus in Edmonton, so possibly I'd make a good guinea pig. I've been hit in the face and had people wave their hands in their face with no great effect, so I'd certainly expect that there's got to be some rather odd conditions given an opportunity to "control a few things."

 

[Infoexcavator]

Dim Mak is for real. UFC rules do not prohibit it so all the champions are these magicians, its getting boring with the guys just standing with theirs hands up when the bell rings and knocking each other out in the first second, there is no actual hand to hand combat needed anymore.

The best part of these no-touch knockouts its the totally exaggerated "reviving" after the KO.

 

[dafydd]

Yellow Bamboooooooooo

No such thing exists. The very idea is ridonkulous.

Gotta work for a KO the old fashioned way: learn how to punch. Or Kick.

If you ever get involved in a brawl do not rely on the no touch knockout.

 

[Trent Wray]

I want to market Chi Whiz, where it comes in a can and you can spray it and knock people the hell out with pressurized Chi.

Also, I could spray Chi onto a cracker or Triscuit efficiently at a distance of up to 7 feet.



ETA: In fact, I think what would be interesting, would be to try something like that with a group instead of knocking them down with the punch. Just stand there, spray the can of Chi / air, and see if they fall like goats.