Exclusive Interview with Patrizio E Tressoldi: Extrasensory perception, presentiment, remote viewing, and a small effect

In this exclusive interview, Andrei Eugen Drăguț speaks with Dr. Patrizio Tressoldi, psychologist and senior researcher at the University of Padua, affiliated with Studium Patavinum and the Science of Consciousness Research Group. His core question is whether consciousness is primary. From that question he follows mental communication at a distance, the physics of mind–matter interaction, the neurophenomenology of out-of-body and channeling experiences induced by hypnosis, and what he calls the science of spirituality.

The same career also produced instruments used in Italian schools and clinics: the BVN neuropsychological batteries for ages 5–11 and 12–18, the DD2 battery for developmental dyslexia and dysorthographia, tests of arithmetic and mathematical problem-solving, and volumes on the diagnosis and treatment of learning difficulties. With Massimo Biondi he published Parapsicologia (Il Mulino, 2007). At the Department of General Psychology in Padua his stated interests have been nonlocal functions of mind, quantum physics and psychology, and augmented cognition.

His trajectory moves from clinical measurement and the ordinary failures of learning to a dual-aspect monism in which mind and matter are treated as two manifestations of a single source, under quantum-like laws. The conversation stays on the figures he still stands by: presentiment, remote viewing, the ganzfeld, forced-choice extrasensory perception, then what a many-labs null result would remove from his page of best evidence, which laboratories outside Italy he trusts. The answers are reproduced as they were given.

A body that moves first

Four procedures are on the table. For each, the request is the same: the size he still accepts, the count of people or trials behind it, and the rule for adding one study to another. The first is a bodily signal that shifts before an unpredictable stimulus. The other three are reports of a hidden target — by free description, under sensory homogenization, and by a choice from a short fixed list.

• In Duggan and Tressoldi (2018) and Mossbridge, Tressoldi and Utts (2012): how large is the presentiment effect you still stand by — the body’s small change before a random event — in how many people, and in which signals (skin, heart, brain)?

Usually, for most people, physiological signals (e.g., heart rate, EEG, skin conductance level, pupil dilation, etc.) related to future unpredictable events are very small and difficult to detect in a normal state of consciousness. As with all phenomena, individual differences are very high.

• In Tressoldi and Katz (2023): how large is the remote-viewing effect you still stand by, in how many trials, and what counting rule is good enough to put studies together?

The average correct target identification observed in this meta-analysis, is approximately 20% above the expected chance, the highest percentage with respect to all other procedures used to test extra-sensory perception.

• In the ganzfeld registered report and in Storm, Tressoldi and Di Risio (2010): how large is the ganzfeld / free-response effect you still stand by, and in how many sessions?

The more recent meta-analysis related to extra-sensory perception in a Ganzfeld environment is this one: https://f1000research.com/articles/10-234/v4. The overall result shows a percentage of target correct identification approximately 6% above the expected chance, but there are high difference between selected versus non-selected participants, 9% versus 5.4% respectively.

• In Storm and Tressoldi (2023): how large is the forced-choice ESP effect you still stand by — choosing among a few fixed options — and in how many trials?

In this meta-analysis, the average correct target identification is less than 1% above the expected chance.

What remains after the experiments are repeated

The exchange then leaves the original pools. He is asked whether the four procedures weaken when the work is done again, which studies were planned in public before any data were collected, and whether he will name one combined figure a doubtful reader could inspect without taking a side.

• After Tressoldi and Storm (2026) on unpublished negative studies, and Bierman, Spottiswoode and Bijl (2016) on flexible analysis: which of those four effects still stand?

To which four effects are you referring?

• The four effects I was referring to are those in Tressoldi and Storm (2026): forced-choice ESP (choosing from a fixed set, with a known chance baseline), ganzfeld (sensory isolation, then ranking a sender’s target against decoys; chance is 25%), remote viewing (describing an unknown target, later judged against decoys), and presentiment (a physiological shift before a randomly chosen emotional stimulus).

For all this experimental protocols, but the remote viewing one, we didn’t observe a decline effect, that is a decline of the phenomena with the repetitions of the experiments. For the remote viewing protocol, we observed a small decline.

• Name the studies of presentiment, ganzfeld, or remote viewing that were planned in public before the data, run in more than one lab, and that you still trust. Did they get the size of effect they had announced?

These are some of the preregistered studies resulting with at least one supported confirmatory hypothesis:

1. Duma GM, Mento G, Manari T, Martinelli M, Tressoldi P (2017) Driving with Intuition: A Preregistered Study about the EEG Anticipation of Simulated Random Car Accidents. PLoS ONE 12 (1): e0170370. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0170370
2. Tressoldi, P. E., Martinelli, M., Semenzato, L., & Gonella, A. (2015). Does psychophysiological predictive anticipatory activity predict real or future probable events?. EXPLORE, 11(2), 109-117. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.explore.2014.12.003
3. Wahbeh, H., Cannard, C., Radin, D., & Delorme, A. (2024). Who’s calling? Evaluating the accuracy of guessing who is on the phone. EXPLORE, 20(2), 239-247. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.explore.2023.08.008

The story he uses when he reads a number

• From Tressoldi and Storm (2021), the review of reviews: which one pooled result would you show a skeptic who does not want a belief, only a number?

To read and comprehend the whole paper.

Hit rates give way to interpretation. He is asked about a 2026 report of two progenitor populations in the early brain, and about a self built from local processing rather than from a single center. Further questions ask what fresh result would make him withdraw a claim, which machine and collective datasets he still counts as evidence, and which account of mind he actually uses when a number is in front of him.

• I would like to know whether you have considered, or plan to consider, a recent finding that the developing brain draws on two separate progenitor populations (Jokhai, R. T., Dundes, C. E., Ahsan, H. S., et al. Two parallel neural ectoderm progenitors contribute to the developing brain. Nature Neuroscience, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-026-02433-7). I would also like to know whether you have considered a distributed, layered self with local processing — a kind of natural edge computing.

I think that any physiological explanations of extrasensory perception and mind-matter interaction at distance do not stand up to empirical evidence. That is why it is necessary to consider non-physiological, but mental, explanations.

• What new result would make you take a paragraph off your “best evidence” page?

A many-labs preregistered study related to extrasensory perception using remote viewing protocols with null effects.

• For mind–machine tests (random-number generators), wishing at a distance, and the Global Consciousness Project: which pooled effect do you still treat as real evidence?

The best accumulated evidence is described in https://journals.lub.lu.se/jaex/article/view/25553

• When you read a number, which story of mind do you actually use: First Sight, CIRTS, informational psi, or an entanglement-style account?

If you refer to which theory I prefer to explain extrasensory perception and the mind-matter interaction at a distance, it is a dual-aspect monist metaphysical interpretation, where what we consider mind and matter are not two distinct ontological entities, but two different manifestations of a single source, under quantum-like laws.

One clue, then two, then three

The last stretch is about access. He is asked for the shortest home test with the scoring rule fixed before the first attempt, for laboratories outside Italy whose trial counts and scoring rules are clear enough to combine, and for any Romanian experiments that are not newspaper stories. Declassified American intelligence sessions are then put to him as material for a review. The final question is civic: how an ordinary witness should write down an odd event, and whom they should contact.

• From the 2026 remote-viewing guidelines: what is the shortest honest home test (plan written before the first try, small announced number of trials, scoring rule fixed in advance)?

In these guidelines, we didn’t discuss how to devise a well-designed experiment. At any rate, we suggest planning at least 50 trials using the same procedure, with realistic targets and a fixed chance expectation, e.g., 20 or 25%.

• Which labs outside Italy publish this work with a plan posted before the data, or at least with the number of trials and the scoring rule clear enough to pool?

There are many. In my opinion, the best labs are:

• https://noetic.org/
• The Centre for the Study of Anomalous Psychological Processes, directed by prof. Chris Roe (https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/chris-roe)
• The lab directed by prof. Markus Maier, https://www.lmu.de/psy/en/persons/contact-page/markus-maier-9ace5a4e.html
• Are there Romanian studies, even weak ones, that are not only newspaper stories? If yes, would you read the method?

Unfortunately, I’m not aware of any study carried out by Romanian people.

• From the released Star Gate remote-viewing files that state the number of trials and a scoring rule fixed in advance: which results would you put into a review, which would you leave out, and why — no prior plan, no scoring rule, stopping when the result looks good, keeping only some sessions, or too few trials?

Most of the materials related to the projects carried out by USA intelligence agencies are not experimental studies; hence, it cannot be used for a scientific analysis.

• Finally, are you considering a guide for non-specialists on how to observe an event and distinguish a genuine anomaly from a biased interpretation? It would be useful to know how an ordinary person can make a clear, accurate record, and whom they should contact if something like this happens in their life.

I suggest to follow the famous Agatha Christie’s claim “”One clue is a clue, two clues are a coincidence, but three clues make a proof.”.

Conclusion

Tressoldi spent the interview on percentages: remote viewing approximately 20 percent above chance in his 2023 pool, ganzfeld nearer 6 percent, forced choice under 1 percent, presentiment small enough that he would not quote a size. What stays, for me as interviewer, is not a percentage. It is his refusal to treat the mind as a late product of the body. Physiology, he says, does not carry these effects. Mind and matter, for him, are two faces of a single source, under laws that look quantum. Dual-aspect monism is the preference he states when offered First Sight, CIRTS, informational psi, or an entanglement account. He does not show that the numbers select it. A fair home test, in his view, starts at 50 trials, same procedure, real targets, the chance line fixed before anyone begins. And if something strange happens outside a lab, he does not send the reader to a protocol. He sends them to Agatha Christie. One clue is a clue. Two are a coincidence. Three make a proof. That is a standard for noticing, not for deciding.