AWARENESS OF EEG‐SUBJECTIVE ACTIVITY RELATIONSHIPS DETECTED WITHIN A CLOSED FEEDBACK SYSTEM

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Abstract
The present report summarizes results from feedback experiments using the three EEG frequency ranges of theta, alpha, and beta to operate lights of three different colors. The subjects were requested to try to isolate and identify feeling (and/or thought) activity which they felt caused successful operation of the lights. Written descriptions of this experience from one subject group (26 Ss) were compared to evaluations of subjective activity obtained in a second group of subjects (45 Ss) determined using a color Q‐sort technique. Results from the latter technique were controlled for effects of color and for effects of the feedback experience using a control subject group (45 Ss). Results established two sets of relationships with subjective activity: color and EEG frequency. Each set could exist independently or in relationship to the other. Several characteristics were postulated to account for development of the subjective‐biological relationships in this feedback system, e.g., that generation of “stimulus”and “response”were both internal events; that both reinforcement of the process and the behavior reinforced were selected by subjective activity of the subject; and that positive reinforcement did not occur without effort by the subject to define it.