Tests for Human Perception of 60 Hz Moderate Strength Magnetic Fields

The first page of “Tests for Human Perception
of 60 Hz Moderate Strength Magnetic Fields,”
by Tucker and Schmitt (IEEE Trans. Biomed. Eng.
25:509-518, 1978).

In Chapter 9 of Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology, Russ Hobbie and I discuss possible effects of weak external electric and magnetic fields on the body. In a footnote, we write

Foster (1996) reviewed many of the laboratory studies and described cases where subtle cues meant the observers were not making truly “blind” observations. Though not directly relevant to the issue under discussion here, a classic study by Tucker and Schmitt (1978) at the University of Minnesota is worth noting. They were seeking to detect possible human perception of 60-Hz magnetic fields. There appeared to be an effect. For 5 years they kept providing better and better isolation of the subject from subtle auditory clues. With their final isolation chamber, none of the 200 subjects could reliably perceive whether the field was on or off. Had they been less thorough and persistent, they would have reported a positive effect that does not exist.

In this blog, I like to revisit articles that we cite in IPMB.

Robert Tucker and Otto Schmitt (1978) “Tests for Human Perception of 60 Hz Moderate Strength Magnetic Fields.” IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, Volume 25, Pages 509-518.

The abstract of their paper states

After preliminary experiments that pointed out the extreme cleverness with which perceptive individuals unintentionally used subtle auxiliary clues to develop impressive records of apparent magnetic field detection, we developed a heavy, tightly sealed subject chamber to provide extreme isolation against such false detection. A large number of individuals were tested in this isolation system with computer randomized sequences of 150 trials to determine whether they could detect when they were, and when they were not, in a moderate (7.5-15 gauss rms) alternating magnetic field, or could learn to detect such fields by biofeedback training. In a total of over 30,000 trials on more than 200 persons, no significantly perceptive individuals were found, and the group performance was compatible, at the 0.5 probability level, with the hypothesis that no real perception occurred.

The Tucker-Schmitt study illustrates how observing small effects can be a challenge. Their lesson is valuable, because many weak-field experiments are subject to systematic errors that provide an illusion of a positive result. Near the start of their article, Tucker and Schmitt write

We quickly learned that some individuals are incredibly skillful at sensing auxiliary non-magnetic clues, such as coil hum associated with field, so that some “super perceivers” were found who seemed to sense the fields with a statistical probability as much as 10^–30 against happening by chance. A vigorous campaign had then to be launched technically to prevent the subject from sensing “false” clues while leaving him completely free to exert any real magnetic perceptiveness he might have.

Few authors are as forthright as Tucker and Schmitt when recounting early, unsuccessful experiments. Yet, their tale shows how experimental scientists work.

Early experiments, in which an operator visible to the test subject controlled manually, according to a random number table, whether a field was to be applied or not, alerted us to the necessity for careful isolation of the test subject from unintentional clues from which he could consciously, or subconsciously, deduce the state of coil excitation. No poker face is good enough to hide, statistically, knowledge of a true answer, and even such feeble clues as changes in building light, hums, vibrations and relay clatter are converted into low but significant statistical biases.

IPMB doesn’t teach experimental methods, but all scientists must understand the difference between systematic and random errors. Uncertainty from random errors is suppressed by taking additional data, but eliminating systematic errors may require you to redesign your experiment.

In a first round of efforts to prevent utilization of such clues, the control was moved to a remote room and soon given over to a small computer. A “fake” air-core coil system, remotely located but matched in current drain and phase angle to the real large coil system was introduced as a load in the no-field cases. An acoustically padded cabinet was introduced to house the experimental subject, to isolate him from sound and vibration. Efforts were also made to silence the coils by clamping them every few centimeters with plastic ties and by supporting them on air pocket packing material. We tried using masking sound and vibrations, but soon realized that this might also mask real perception of magnetic fields.

Designing experiments is fun; you get to build stuff in a machine shop! I imagine Tucker and Schmitt didn’t expect they would have this much fun. Their initial efforts being insufficient, they constructed an elaborate cabinet to perform their experiments in.

This cabinet was fabricated with four layers of 2 in plywood, full contact epoxy glued and surface coated into a monolithic structure with interleaved corners and fillet corner reinforcement to make a very rigid heavy structure weighing, in total, about 300 kg. The structure was made without ferrous metal fastening and only a few slender brass screws were used. The door was of similar epoxyed 4-ply construction but faced with a thin bonded melamine plastic sheet. The door was hung on two multi-tongue bakelite hinges with thin brass pins. The door seals against a thin, closed-cell foam-rubber gasket, and is pressure sealed with over a metric ton of force by pumping a mild vacuum inside the chamber of means of a remote acoustically silenced hose-connected large vacuum-cleaner blower. The subject received fresh air through a small acoustic filter inlet leak that also assures sufficient air flow to cool the blower. The chosen “cabin altitude” at about 2500 ft above ambient presented no serious health hazard and was fail-safe protected.

An experimental scientist must be persistent. I remember learning that lesson as a graduate student when I tried for weeks to measure the magnetic field of a single nerve axon. I scrutinized every part of the experiment and fixed every problem I could find, but I still couldn’t measure an action current. Finally, I realized the coaxial cable connecting the nerve to the stimulator was defective. It was a rookie mistake, but I was tenacious and ultimately figured it out. Tucker and Schmitt personify tenacity.

As still more isolation seemed necessary to guarantee practically complete exclusion of auxiliary acoustic and mechanical clues, an extreme effort was made to improve, even further, the already good isolation. The cabinet was now hung by aircraft “Bungee” shock cord running through the ceiling to roof timbers. The cabinet was prevented from swinging as a pendulum by four small non-load-bearing lightly inflated automotive type inner tubes placed between the floor and the cabinet base. Coils already compliantly mounted to isolate intercoil force vibration were very firmly reclamped to discourage intracoil “buzzing.” The cabinet was draped inside with sound absorbing material and the chair for the subject shock-mounted with respect to the cabinet floor. The final experiments, in which minimal perception was found, were done with this system.

Once Tucker and Schmitt heroically eliminated even the most subtle cues about the presence of a magnetic field, subjects could no longer detect whether or not a magnetic field was present. People can’t perceive 60-Hz, 0.0015-T magnetic fields.

Russ and I relegate this tale to a footnote, but it’s an important lesson when analyzing the effects of weak electric and magnetic fields. Small systematic errors abound in these experiments, both when studying humans and when recording from cells in a dish. Experimentalists must ruthlessly design controls that can compensate for or eliminate confounding effects. The better the experimentalist, the more doggedly they root out systematic errors. One reason the literature on the biological effects of weak fields is so mixed may be that few experimentalists take the time to eradicate all sources of error.

Tucker and Schmitt’s experiment is a lesson for us all.