Paranormal believers are more prone to illusory agency detection than skeptics
Paranormal believers are more prone to illusory agency detection than skeptics
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DOI：
10.1016/j.concog.2013.07.004
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发表时间：
2013-09-01
影响因子：
2.4
通讯作者：
van Elk, Michiel
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
van Elk, Michiel
有人假设，虚幻代理检测是超自然代理和超自然信仰信仰的基础。本研究采用生物运动知觉实验研究了怀疑论者和相信超自然现象者对幻觉代理的感知。参与者被要求在点光显示中检测人类代理人的存在或不存在。研究发现，相信超自然现象的人比怀疑论者有更低的感知敏感度，这是由于对没有刺激物存在的刺激的反应偏向于“是”。幻觉代理检测与超自然信念之间的关系仅在低到中等模糊性刺激下存在，而在具有大量视觉干扰物的刺激下，相信者和怀疑者的反应处于同一水平。此外，我们还发现，幻觉代理检测与传统宗教信仰和巫术信仰无关，而超自然信仰（如Psi、唯心论、预知、迷信）与幻觉代理检测密切相关。这些发现证明了幻觉模式感知与超自然和超自然信仰之间的关系，并表明超自然信仰与代理检测偏差密切相关。(C) 2013爱思唯尔公司版权所有。
It has been hypothesized that illusory agency detection is at the basis of belief in supernatural agents and paranormal beliefs. In the present study a biological motion perception task was used to study illusory agency detection in a group of skeptics and a group of paranormal believers. Participants were required to detect the presence or absence of a human agent in a point-light display. It was found that paranormal believers had a lower perceptual sensitivity than skeptics, which was due to a response bias to 'yes' for stimuli in which no agent was present. The relation between paranormal beliefs and illusory agency detection held only for stimuli with low to intermediate ambiguity, but for stimuli with a high number of visual distractors responses of believers and skeptics were at the same level. Furthermore, it was found that illusory agency detection was unrelated to traditional religious belief and belief in witchcraft, whereas paranormal beliefs (i.e. Psi, spiritualism, precognition, superstition) were strongly related to illusory agency detection. These findings qualify the relation between illusory pattern perception and supernatural and paranormal beliefs and suggest that paranormal beliefs are strongly related to agency detection biases. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.