Table 1 - uploaded by Marjaana Lindeman
Content may be subject to copyright.
Source publication
A major problem in research on paranormal beliefs is that the concept of "paranormality" remains to be adequately defined. The aim of this study was to empirically justify the following definition: paranormal beliefs are beliefs in physical, biological, or psychological phenomena that contain core ontological attributes of one of the other two cate...
Context in source publication
Citations
... The target measure, the association between living and a rock is obscured through the inclusion of time which introduces the possibility that live might be understood not as living, but rather to imply a long existence. To be clear, the CKC doesn't claim to measure explicit ontological beliefs: when asked explicitly participants do not believe in the ontological mistakes they have endorsed: they do not believe that houses can know (Lindeman et al., 2008(Lindeman et al., , 2011. However, this raises the question of what aspect of individual characteristics the scale is measuring through its classification tasks. ...
... Understanding one is not easily explainable by its use of knowledge from the other domain as primary and assumptions of cognitive metaphor theory become less stringently applicable: if we don't need a primary domain to understand metaphor it implies that the metaphor / literal distinction may not reflect how people understand language (Madsen, 2016). While the CKC has been acknowledged not to measure ontologies (Lindeman et al., 2008(Lindeman et al., , 2011, it was designed assuming their use and necessity for making a literal/metaphoric categorisation (Lindeman & Aarnio, 2007) leaving it open to criticisms about these assumptions. ...
... When people think analytically about their answers, it appears to decrease the likelihood of making an ontological error and categorising items as literal. This assertion is consistent with participants' explicit denial of belief in the ontological mistakes made when asked directly (Lindeman et al., 2008); people do not believe the mistakes that they make, but when they are not thinking critically people who believe in paranormal beliefs are more likely to make ontological errors. Hence, a revision of the CKC should evaluate the relationship between the revised scale and analytical, or intuitive thinking preferences. ...
The Core Knowledge Confusions scale (CKC) was designed to predict paranormal and spiritual beliefs, alternative health beliefs and the degree to which people assign meaning to events. It measures the likelihood of individuals' tendency to accept ontologically confused content as literally true and has been used to investigate beliefs such as the paranormal. However, the psychometric properties of the CKC have not been tested, limiting the scale’s practical utility. The CKC was revised and tested, internal consistency was checked, and associations to paranormal belief were assessed using a panel survey of 1010 Australian residents (Mage = 52, SD = 17.69, Female = 56%). Using structural equation modelling and regression, the revised scale (CKC-R) content deviated from previous findings. However, it demonstrated acceptable internal, construct, and divergent validity. External correlates of the CKC-R were aligned with expectations: associating with high verbal knowledge, an intuitive cognitive style, and the absorption personality trait (i.e., a tendency to experience altered states of consciousness). The CKC-R provides researchers with a validated measure predicting paranormal belief that is associated with both cognitive and personality-based traits. Interpretation of the CKC-R as a measure of ontological error is less clear and requires further investigation.
... "He took a sip from the transmitter" as opposed to "He took a sip from the waterfall" (Kutas & Hillyard, 1980). Importantly, a growing body of evidence suggests that N400 may also be triggered by a high-level linguistic violation of one's world knowledge or individual belief system (Coronel & Federmeier, 2016;Fondevila et al., 2012Fondevila et al., , 2016Hagoort et al., 2004;Lindeman et al., 2008;van Berkum et al., 2009). For instance, van Berkum et al. (2009) presented moral belief statements, such as "I think euthanasia is an acceptable/unacceptable course of action", to members of a relatively strict Christian political party, and non-religious individuals. ...
... Several studies have investigated whether paranormal and religious beliefs also modulate N400 responses (Fondevila et al., 2016;Izzidien & Chennu, 2018;Lindeman et al., 2008). For instance, Fondevila et al. (2016) reported N400 amplitude differences in response to intuitive sentences (e.g. ...
While religious beliefs are typically studied using questionnaires, there are no standardized tools available for cognitive psychology and neuroscience studies of religious cognition. Here we present the first such tool—the Cambridge Psycholinguistic Inventory of Christian Beliefs (CPICB)—which consists of audio-recorded items of religious beliefs as well as items of three control conditions: moral beliefs, abstract scientific knowledge and empirical everyday life knowledge. The CPICB is designed in such a way that the ultimate meaning of each sentence is revealed only by its final critical word, which enables the precise measurement of reaction times and/or latencies of neurophysiological responses. Each statement comes in a pair of Agree/Disagree versions of critical words, which allows for experimental contrasting between belief and disbelief conditions. Psycholinguistic and psychoacoustic matching between Agree/Disagree versions of sentences, as well as across different categories of the CPICB items (Religious, Moral, Scientific, Everyday), enables rigorous control of low-level psycholinguistic and psychoacoustic features while testing higher-level beliefs. In the exploratory Study 1 (N = 20), we developed and tested a preliminary version of the CPICB that had 480 items. After selecting 400 items that yielded the most consistent responses, we carried out a confirmatory test–retest Study 2 (N = 40). Preregistered data analyses confirmed excellent construct validity, internal consistency and test–retest reliability of the CPICB religious belief statements. We conclude that the CPICB is suitable for studying Christian beliefs in an experimental setting involving behavioural and neuroimaging paradigms, and provide Open Access to the inventory items, fostering further development of the experimental research of religiosity.
... eman y Tversky (2011), en donde también se inducen respuestas intuitivas incorrectas basadas en heurísticos o prejuicios comunes; la prueba Wordsum sobre inteligencia verbal; y un test sobre habilidades asociadas a la aritmética global (cf. Shwartz, Woloshin, Negro y Welch 1997). Para evaluar las confusiones ontológicas (cf. Lindeman y Aarnio 2007;Lindeman et. al. 2008;Lindeman y Svedholm 2013), los participantes debían responder cuán literal o metafórico les parecía el contenido de frases tales como "Una piedra vive mucho tiempo". El supuesto era que quienes percibieran las frases como más literales que metafóricas darían cuenta de una mayor confusión ontológica. Finalmente, completaron un cuestionari ...
El artículo analiza el experimento de A. Pennycook et al., a fin de ampliar el alcance de sus hipótesis y las estrategias para contrastarlas, de modo que contemplen no solo factores cognitivos, sino también aspectos pragmáticos y contextuales implicados en la receptividad al bullshit. Se utiliza el experimento como ejemplo de las asunciones normativas implícitas en las investigaciones descriptivas de psicología y filosofía experimental, ya que, al contrastar hipótesis sobre las intuiciones filosóficas de sentido común, los investigadores parten de supuestos axiológicos sobre la corrección de las respuestas y la fiabilidad de los procesos cognitivos implicados.
... Psychologists have long been interested in paranormal and/or magical (including psi) phenomena in children as well as adults (Rosengren et al., 2000;Subbotsky, 2001Subbotsky, , 2004aSubbotsky, , 2010Wiseman et al., 2003;Watt, 2004, 2006;Lindeman and Aarnio, 2006;Losh and Nzekwe, 2011;Risen, 2016). Some studies focused on the existence of paranormal phenomena (Honorton and Harper, 1974;Bem and Honorton, 1994;Milton and Wiseman, 1999;Etzold, 2006;Moulton and Kosslyn, 2008), while others focused on cognitive thought processes that underpin PBs (Brugger et al., 1990;Lindeman et al., 2008;Fiske and Taylor, 2013). Yet, others focused on personality traits (e.g., intelligence, creativity, schizotypy traits, extraversion, and reasoning abilities) associated with PBs (for reviews, see e.g., French, 1992;Irwin, 1993). ...
Paranormal beliefs (PBs), such as the belief in the soul, or in extrasensory perception, are common in the general population. While there is information regarding what these beliefs correlate with (e.g., cognitive biases, personality styles), there is little information regarding the causal direction between these beliefs and their correlates. To investigate the formation of beliefs, we use an experimental design, in which PBs and belief-associated cognitive biases are assessed before and after a central event: a magic performance (see also Mohr et al., 2018). In the current paper, we report a series of studies investigating the “paranormal potential” of magic performances (Study 1, N = 49; Study 2, N = 89; Study 3, N = 123). We investigated (i) which magic performances resulted in paranormal explanations, and (ii) whether PBs and a belief-associated cognitive bias (i.e., repetition avoidance) became enhanced after the performance. Repetition avoidance was assessed using a random number generation task. After the performance, participants rated to what extent the magic performance could be explained in psychic (paranormal), conjuring, or religious terms. We found that conjuring explanations were negatively associated with religious and psychic explanations, whereas religious and psychic explanations were positively associated. Enhanced repetition avoidance correlated with higher PBs ahead of the performance. We also observed a significant increase in psychic explanations and a drop in conjuring explanations when performances involved powerful psychic routines (e.g., the performer contacted the dead). While the experimentally induced enhancement of psychic explanations is promising, future studies should account for potential variables that might explain absent framing and before–after effects (e.g., emotion, attention). Such effects are essential to understand the formation and manipulation of belief.
... Earlier studies have shown that believers have notably more explicit core ontological confusions than skeptics (Barber, 2014;Lindeman et al., 2008;Lobato, Mendoza, Sims, & Chin, 2014;Svedholm & Lindeman, 2013). Believers' difficulty in determining the literal truth of core ontological confusions can also be observed in EEG wave forms (Lindeman et al., 2008). ...
... Earlier studies have shown that believers have notably more explicit core ontological confusions than skeptics (Barber, 2014;Lindeman et al., 2008;Lobato, Mendoza, Sims, & Chin, 2014;Svedholm & Lindeman, 2013). Believers' difficulty in determining the literal truth of core ontological confusions can also be observed in EEG wave forms (Lindeman et al., 2008). However, whether skeptics might endorse implicit core ontological confusions has not been examined. ...
... Control items included six fully metaphorical statements (e.g., ''A wailing wind is a flute") and five fully literal statements (e.g., ''Running water is a fluid"). Most items (both confusions and fillers) were the same as in our previous studies (Lindeman & Aarnio, 2007;Lindeman et al., 2008;Svedholm & Lindeman, 2013) while the rest were new ones formulated for the present study. Participants were asked whether they thought the statements were only metaphorical (=1) or whether they could be literally true (=2). ...
... We used a 14-item ontological confusions scale (Lindeman & Aarnio, 2007;Lindeman, et al., 2008;Svedholm & Lindeman, 2013), translated into English from Finnish. Participants were given the following instructions: "Do you think the following statements can be literally true, the way a sentence such as 'Wayne Gretzky was a hockey player' is true? ...
Although bullshit is common in everyday life and has attracted attention from philosophers, its reception (critical or ingenuous) has not, to our knowledge, been subject to empirical investigation. Here we focus on pseudo-profound bullshit, which consists of seemingly impressive assertions that are presented as true and meaningful but are actually vacuous. We presented participants with bullshit statements consisting of buzzwords randomly organized into statements with syntactic structure but no discernible meaning (e.g., “Wholeness quiets infinite phenomena”). Across multiple studies, the propensity to judge bullshit statements as profound was associated with a variety of conceptually relevant variables (e.g., intuitive cognitive style, supernatural belief). Parallel associations were less evident among profundity judgments for more conventionally profound
(e.g., “A wet person does not fear the rain”) or mundane (e.g., “Newborn babies require constant attention”) statements. These results support the idea that some people are more receptive to this type of bullshit and that detecting it is not merely a matter of indiscriminate skepticism but rather a discernment of deceptive vagueness in otherwise impressive sounding claims. Our results
also suggest that a bias toward accepting statements as true may be an important component of pseudo-profound bullshit receptivity.
... For instance, individuals high as compared to low in magical beliefs more frequently see patterns in random noise (Brugger et al., 1993;Blackmore and Moore, 1994), show enhanced illusory face perception (Riekki et al., 2013) or misjudge the probability of events (Brugger et al., 1990;Bressan, 2002). Moreover, believers are more likely to accept bogus personality descriptions (Mason and Budge, 2011), report on events that have never occurred (Tsakanikos and Reed, 2005) and need more time to understand the truth in sentences that violate core knowledge (Lindeman et al., 2008). Such cognitive biases might link with the propensity of magical believers for remote associative processing (Gianotti et al., 2001), fantasy-proneness (Sanchez-Bernardos and Avia, 2006), and openness to experience (Ross et al., 2002). ...
... The N400 is therefore sensitive to counterintuitiveness in a general sense (violations of intuitive knowledge about the world) and, hence, should be also sensitive to counterintuitiveness in a more strict sense (core knowledge violations). Indeed, the N400 component has been used to analyze semantic processing of core knowledge violations in paranormal believers (Lindeman et al., 2008). The N400 component can be followed by a P600 component, a possible index of structural reanalysis , classically observed for syntactic violations (Osterhout & Holcomb, 1992) but sometimes also in response to semantic violations (Kim & Osterhout, 2005; Martin-Loeches, Nigbur, Casado, Hohlfeld, & Sommer, 2006). ...
It has been shown that counterintuitive ideas from mythological and religious texts are more acceptable than other (non-religious) world knowledge violations. In the present experiment we explored whether this relates to the way they are interpreted (literal vs. metaphorical). Participants were presented with verification questions that referred to either the literal or a metaphorical meaning of the sentence previously read (counterintuitive religious, counterintuitive non-religious and intuitive), in a block-wise design. Both behavioral and electrophysiological results converged. At variance to the literal interpretation of the sentences, the induced metaphorical interpretation specifically facilitated the integration (N400 amplitude decrease) of religious counterintuitions, whereas the semantic processing of non-religious counterintuitions was not affected by the interpretation mode. We suggest that religious ideas tend to operate like other instances of figurative language, such as metaphors, facilitating their acceptability despite their counterintuitive nature.
© 2015 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.
... Previous studies have consistently shown that religious and paranormal beliefs are strongly related to confusions of core knowledge (Barber, 2014;Lindeman et al., 2008;Lobato, Mendoza, Sims, & Chin, 2014;, but not to other types of bizarre statements, such as strange but possible statements (''Trees grow in rooms'', or anomalies (''The house writes its history'', ''Under the Earth lives the dining-room' ' Fondevila et al., 2012;Lindeman et al., 2008). We expect to replicate the relationship between core ontological confusions and religious and paranormal beliefs also in the present study. ...
... Previous studies have consistently shown that religious and paranormal beliefs are strongly related to confusions of core knowledge (Barber, 2014;Lindeman et al., 2008;Lobato, Mendoza, Sims, & Chin, 2014;, but not to other types of bizarre statements, such as strange but possible statements (''Trees grow in rooms'', or anomalies (''The house writes its history'', ''Under the Earth lives the dining-room' ' Fondevila et al., 2012;Lindeman et al., 2008). We expect to replicate the relationship between core ontological confusions and religious and paranormal beliefs also in the present study. ...
... We used 14 statements from the Core Knowledge Confusions scale (a = .85, Lindeman & Aarnio, 2007;Lindeman et al., 2008). All statements concerned only the kinds of properties (i.e., verbs) that children learn to associate appropriately with mental, physical, animate, inanimate, living and lifeless phenomena during the preschool years (Rakison & Poulin-Dubois, 2001;Wellman & Estes, 1986). ...
... For instance, individuals high as compared to low in magical beliefs more frequently see patterns in random noise (Blackmore & Moore, 1994; Brugger, Gamma, Muri, Schafer, & Taylor, 1993), show enhanced illusory face perception (Riekki, Lindeman, Aleneff, Halme, & Nuortimo, 2013) or misjudge the probability of events (Bressan, 2002; Brugger, Landis, & Regard, 1990). Moreover, believers are more likely to accept bogus personality descriptions (Mason & Budge, 2011), report on events that have never occurred (Tsakanikos & Reed, 2005) and need
more
time
to
understand
the
truth
in
sentences
that
violate
core
knowledge
(Lindeman
et al., 2008). Such cognitive biases might link with the propensity of magical believers for remote associative
processing
(Gianotti,
Mohr,
Pizzagalli,
Lehmann,
&
Brugger,
2001),
fantasy-‐proneness (Sanchez-‐Bernardos & Avia, 2006), and openness to experience (Ross, Lutz, & Bailley, 2002). ...
Magical ideation and belief in the paranormal is considered to represent a trait-like character; people either believe in it or not. Yet, anecdotes indicate that exposure to an anomalous event can turn skeptics into believers. This transformation is likely to be accompanied by altered cognitive functioning such as impaired judgments of event likelihood. Here, we investigated whether the exposure to an anomalous event changes individuals’ explicit traditional (religious) and non-traditional (e.g., paranormal) beliefs as well as cognitive biases that have previously been associated with non-traditional beliefs, e.g., repetition avoidance when producing random numbers in a mental dice task. In a classroom, 91 students saw a magic demonstration after their psychology lecture. Before the demonstration, half of the students were told that the performance was done respectively by a conjuror (magician group) or a psychic (psychic group). The instruction influenced participants’ explanations of the anomalous event. Participants in the magician, as compared to the psychic group, were more likely to explain the event through conjuring abilities while the reverse was true for psychic abilities. Moreover, these explanations correlated positively with their prior traditional and non-traditional beliefs. Finally, we observed that the psychic group showed more repetition avoidance than the magician group, and this effect remained the same regardless of whether assessed before or after the magic demonstration. We conclude that pre-existing beliefs and contextual suggestions both influence people’s interpretations of anomalous events and associated cognitive biases. Beliefs and associated cognitive biases are likely flexible well into adulthood and change with actual life events.
