This study investigates the issues of motivation and attitudes in ESP. It attempts to examine the theoretical assumption that ESP is motivating for its learners. The attempt is to see what relevance the ESP situation could have on its learners' attitudes and motivation. Particularly it looks at a circle of possible significant relations of ESP learners. It examines the possible relevance among the perceptions of specific needs of learners, ESP, achievement, attitudes and motivation. The aim is to see if there is a relationship between ESP, perceptions of the discourse community's specific needs and achievement and motivation. The study uses a military institute as an example of an ESP teaching situation. The sample of the study is 502 cadets, 486 in the questionnaire and 16 in the interview, in King Khalid Military Academy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. They represent the three levels (years) in the Academy. Two research methods are used to collect the data: semistructured interviews as a qualitative method and a questionnaire as a quantitative method. The interviews are analysed qualitatively, and questionnaire responses are analysed quantitatively, both in percentages using SPSS correlational analysis. The results of the study show that there is a positive perception and preference among learners of their specific needs. They also suggest that attitudes towards learning the language were significantly correlated with achievement; but this was not the case with attitudes towards the people and culture of the language. In addition, the results reveal that there is a significant relationship between the perception of specific needs, ESP, high achievement and positive attitudes towards learning the language. The study also suggests that these learners have an integrative type of motivation of learning English, related to their discourse community. In the light of the results, the study concludes that the positive attitudes towards learning ESP are related to learners' positive attitudes towards learning and better achievement and motivation, which could suggest that ESP can work to engender learning. The study also concludes that the ESP learning situation could work as a counter to learners' negative attitudes towards the people and culture of the target language; and these were seen as not influential on these learners' achievement. It is suggested that the issues of different attitudes towards the people and culture of the target language and attitudes towards learning it, as well as the integrative motivation towards the sub-culture of the ESP discourse, are worthy of more investigation in different settings, as these are under researched conceptions within ESP.

In studying altered states of consciousness in relation to psi, parapsychology researchers have achieved interesting results. It seems that altered states of consciousness could facilitate somehow psi-manifestation, however, further research is needed to verify that. This thesis presents two experiments aimed to explore participants reports of their experiences in two altered states of consciousness conditions, the dream and the ganzfeld. The ESP dream condition is used in one of this experiments. The ESP dream condition involves a clairvoyance technique. The experimental ESP dream research is reviewed with emphasis on those experiments which are relevant to the method used in this thesis. Problems with some methods of dream ESP research are approached and discussed as well as difficulties of doing such research. The ganzfeld condition with clairvoyance technique is used in the second experiment of this thesis. The ganzfeld is know as one of the most successful methods for the achievement of ESP results. The experimental ganzfeld research is reviewed emphasising studies which are relevant to the method used in this thesis, and difficulties with methods of conducing ganzfeld research are presented and discussed. A general review is made of the content analysis method which is used in this thesis as a tool to analyse the content of dream and ganzfeld experiment reports. The results obtained of the dream and ganzfeld reports' content analysis showed patterns within the participants' reports data. All the results concerning the content analysis are presented within specific chapters of this thesis. Both studies in this thesis were conducted by the author in Curitiba, a southern city of Brazil. A total of 50 Brazilian participants took part in 100 experiments, 50 dream experiments, and 50 ganzfeld experiments. The main question of this thesis was: "What do people report about their dream and ganzfeld experiences measured in relation to content analysis categories, and what can that tell us about the ESP process itself, and are these categories related to actual success and failure?". The main findings of this thesis were that overall results for the dream condition were at chance, and overall results for the ganzfeld condition were suggestive of psi-missing, thus the null-hypothesis was confirmed. That suggests that perhaps psi just do not exist. In addition, a sheep-goat effect was found in both dream and ganzfeld conditions, and clarity of hearing and clarity of imagery correlated negatively with ganzfeld ESP scores. A pattern was found in content analysis of participants' reports for female participants' dream, ganzfeld mentation, and ganzfeld written reports successful trials, all three having more references of content to torso/anatomy category. In addition, female participants' dream, ganzfeld mentation, and ganzfeld written reports unsuccessful trials presented a pattern with more references of content to male/female characters category. Finally, further research is needed, such as in countries like Brazil, to further parapsychological knowledge about the psi process as a whole.

Second sight, a special psychic ability of having prophetic visions, is traditionally believed to be a natural inborn faculty of mind running in certain families in Scotland and other countries. Detailed written accounts of second sight from the 17th century onwards are consistent with modern-day accounts collected by folklorists and ethnologists. The visions could take the form either of direct representations of someone's fate such as seeing a funeral procession, or symbolic representations, such as seeing a death shroud on someone. The current study using questionnaire and interview methods examined the prevalence of second sight, the nature of the experiences, and whether there is any evidence to support the belief that it is hereditary. A large-scale mail survey, using random sampling methods, showed that the frequency of second sight was 10% in the Western Isles, 16% in the Highlands and Lowlands, and 33% in the Grampian region. Generally, neither highland descent nor gender seemed to be significantly related to people reporting second sight. In all the areas, people who reported having second sight were significantly more likely to report second sight in blood-related family members. A phenomenological and ethnological approach was applied to the design of the questionnaire and interview schedule, the style of the interviews and their analysis. The 65 item questionnaire covering the different types of second sight experiences found in the historical accounts and biographical and family history information, was sent to people who expressed an interest in the study. A total of 208 questionnaires were received, primarily from Scotland but also from other countries. The responses indicated that second sight is experienced by people of diverse ages, occupations, religious and cultural traditions. Women tended to report more experiences than men and an important factor related to having second sight was having had a religious experience. Fieldwork was conducted in different parts of Scotland. Seventy people were interviewed and over 500 accounts were collected. A phenomenoiogical approach was applied to looking at patterns in the accounts. A consistent feature is that the imagery, whether visual, auditory, kinaesthetic or olfactory, was described as real and not originating purely in the mind of the observer. This was true whether the emotional content was positive or negative. Some of the visions were seen as quick 'film-like' images through the mind, others appeared as projected three-dimensional images which became the central focus of perception. It was proposed that people with second sight could have an eidetic-like imagery. Two of the most common types of second sight experiences are awake visions of future deaths of people well-known to the percipient or of unfamiliar persons. Accounts of seeing funeral processions and death shrouds are rarely reported today. A total of 130 pedigrees from people with a history of second sight were constructed. The results of pedigree and segregation analyses demonstrate that second sight seems consistent with an autosomal dominant inheritance pattern, especially for small family sizes. Though certain aspects of the data favoured a social and cultural model, it was argued that they were still consistent with second sight having an underlying genetic component. The importance of other studies examining the pedigrees of second sight in different cultures was stressed. If similar inheritance patterns were observed in disparate cultures, this would provide further scientific support for the view that second sight is hereditary. It was speculated that second sight may be part of a creative mental process and what may be hereditary is the way information is received and processed by the brain and expressed in different sensory modalities.

The research within this thesis has been concerned with the concept of individual lability and how this may impact the occurrence of psychokinetic (PK) effects. Although frequently used as a descriptor within the fields of psychology, parapsychology has attempted to explore individual lability as a construct in its own right. Defined as an 'ease of change', within parapsychological research individual lability has been afforded the ability to either act as a contributing or mediating factor in the production of PK effects. To that effect, a major concern for this thesis was to operationalize the construct of individual lability via the development of a psychometric measure - an initial Lability Scale and then a further Revised Lability Scale. In order to make sense of the theoretical assumptions about individual lability this thesis explores the background of the production of PK effects in both real-world and experimental environments. It identifies shared individual elements in the reports of PK effects relating to heightened arousal, neurological activity, personality traits, emotional states and creativity that may help to identify multiple dimensions of individual lability. Drawing on the perspectives of lability models which emphasize an interaction between differing lability levels of random systems as a predictor of PK effects, it is suggested that successful outcomes are more likely between high levels of one system and low levels of another system. For the purposes of the three empirical studies a Random Number Generator (RNG) with different levels of Table, Pseudo and Live were employed to explore this interaction. An initial online survey consisting of measures of creative, neurological, state and Openness to Experience enabled the creation of the 71-item, 5 factor Lability Scale (LS) using factor analysis. Factors were defined as: Intuitive Cognition, Conceptual Cognition, Ego-Orientated Cognition, Emotional Interpretation and Analytical Cognition. The LS had good internal reliability and did not correlate with additional measures of anomalous experience and PK experiences, thus demonstrating face-value validity. The LS was subsequently employed in a series of three PK-RNG experiments exploring the lability interaction which incorporated a standardised design of a computerised I Ching task measured using the Q-sort method and separate group samples (N = 50). Study One included the impact of perceived stress, Study Two included the impact of the participant/research interaction, Study Three included the impact of goal-orientated striving. The primary hypothesis that levels of individual lability (Low, Medium, High) would significantly interact with Q-sort ratings of RNG system lability was not supported for all three experiments. In addition, the impact of the additional variables was non-significant. However, significant correlations were found between all of the LS factors apart from Analytical Cognition. It was also observed that there was a significant difference between lability levels between genders, with males on average having lower lability levels. In addition, a final analysis combining the individual and RNG lability data from all three studies was conducted, although there was also no significant interaction effect found between levels of individual and RNG lability. However, following the consistent lack of response from the Analytical Cognition factor it was deemed necessary to psychometrically refine the Lability Scale further. Therefore, a second factor analysis was conducted on the combined experimental data (N = 147) and the 32-item, 3 factor Revised Lability Scale was developed. Three identified factors were defined as: Creative Expression, Emotional Interpretation and Spiritual Interpretation. It was noted that the factor structure was somewhat reversed to that of the initial LS but the majority of items remained consistent. However, analysis showed that there was no interaction found between levels of individual lability and RNG lability. There were significant relationships between Creative Expression and Table RNG and Pseudo RNG lability levels. In addition, consistent difference between the genders in relation to the three factors were found with large effect sizes, with males having significantly lower levels overall. The final Discussion questioned the lack of significant findings for the lability PK-RNG interaction in relation to the complexity of the methodology and the multiple variables introduced in the empirical studies.

Parapsychological research, including the examination of the anomalous process termed ‘psi’, is highly controversial, with the existence of psi not accepted by mainstream science. The aim of this thesis was to study one aspect of psi, extrasensory perception (ESP), to examine whether evidence for ESP could be obtained or whether ostensibly extrasensory experiences can be attributed to purely psychological processes. Three studies are reported. The first obtained reports of spontaneous cases of ostensible ESP from 94 participants, using an online survey. Participants described their experience and responded to a series of questions regarding the aftermath of their experience and their reasoning for a paranormal interpretation. Results demonstrated several patterns that replicated earlier findings, including the predominance of female percipients, serious events, and close relationships between the percipient and target person. Negative emotions were common, including shock and confusion, particularly at the point of ostensible confirmation of the experience; the most common long-term response was an increase in paranormal belief, although some participants were relatively unaffected. Approximately two-thirds of participants had considered viable normal explanations for their experience, including coincidence and expectation of likely outcomes. Paranormal explanations were commonly attributed to the lack of a viable normal explanation, the striking coincidence between the experience and event, or the unusual nature of the experience. Many cases were weak evidentially; findings overall suggest that many ostensibly extrasensory experiences may have non-psi explanations. Two subsequent studies examined ESP in laboratory conditions, using the ganzfeld paradigm. Based on findings from spontaneous case research and previous laboratory studies, it was examined whether success was related to the emotional bond between pairs of participants, or to their sexes. The first study employed 30 pairs of participants, each taking part once as sender and once as receiver. Picture postcards were used as targets, and an emotional connectedness scale was used to assess pairing closeness. Direct hits and binary hits were above mean chance expectation (MCE); both were non-significant, although binary hitting was only marginally so. Results were suggestive of improved performance for closer pairings and mixed-sex pairings, but were non-significant. The second study was a partial replication, with 40 pairs of participants and using video clips as targets. EEG recordings were taken from the frontal midline (Fz) site of both participants. Approximately half of senders experienced stroboscopic stimulation at 6Hz throughout the trial in an attempt to drive theta rhythms associated with a hypnagogic state, mirroring the state expected in receivers due to ganzfeld stimulation. Direct hits were at MCE, while binary hits were non-significantly above MCE; binary hitting across the two studies was significant. There was no effect of pairing closeness or sexes on success, and hitting was not associated with any EEG features or with strobe usage. Overall, laboratory findings appeared promising in terms of significant binary hitting but continued a trend of inconsistency within and between ganzfeld ESP studies. This inconsistency, together with the many weakly evidential spontaneous cases collected, point more strongly to a psychological interpretation of ostensibly extrasensory experiences, rather than the elusive psi.

In the mid-1890s the London based Society for Psychical Research dispatched researchers to the Scottish Highlands and Islands to investigate an extraordinary power of prophecy said to be peculiar to the residents of these remote regions. Described in Gaelic as the An-da-shealladh or ‘the two sights’, and given in English as ‘second sight’, the phenomenon was most commonly associated with the vision of future events: the death of neighbour, the arrival of strangers into the community, the success or failure of a fishing trip and so forth. The SPR were not the first to take an interest in this pre-visionary faculty, rather they joined a legion of scientists, travel writers, antiquarians, poets and artists who had made enquires into the topic from the end of the seventeenth century. This thesis examines the remarkably prominent position enjoyed by Scottish second sight in the Victorian popular imagination. In seeking to appreciate why a strange visionary ability was able to make claims upon the attention of the whole nation where other folk motifs were consigned to the realms of specialist interest only, this project charts its migration through a series of nineteenth-century cultural sites: mesmerism and phrenology, modern spiritualism and anthropology, romance literature and folklorism, and finally psychical research and Celtic mysticism. Binding these individual case studies together is a cast of shared actors - Walter Scott, Catherine Crowe, William Howitt, Marie Corelli, Andrew Lang and Ada Goodrich Freer - and a focus on their common investigative and creative cultures. My interest is with how the power of second sight, once defined as a supernatural occurrence tied to the geographically distant and mysterious Scottish Highlands, comes to be transformed by the close of the nineteenth century, into a supra-normal facet of the psyche, potentially accessible and exploitable by all.