This project will support a policy workshop on Federal support of research into exceptional abilities, including such phenomena as photographic memory, lightning calculation, genius, creative altruism and extraordinary systematic transformations. This workshop, primarily for Federal science policy officials, will follow on a larger, public symposium on this topic being sponsored by the Institute of Noetic Sciences. The primary focus of the discussions at the NSF-supported workshop will be sources of funding and research agenda for exceptional abilities research. Outcomes of the workshop will include a published report of the proceedings, an overview of current research in this area now being supported by the government, and recommendations concerning the next steps various agencies and organizations might take to advance research in this area. The Institute of Noetic Sciences is a public foundation whose purposes are to promote scientific research on the mind and human potentials, and to explore the application of that research in health, education, business and other fields. They are well qualified to organize this workshop.
