Cognition and Belief in Paranormal Phenomena: Gestalt/Feature-Intensive Processing Theory and Tendencies Toward ADHD, Depression, and Dissociation

Abstract

Belief in paranormal phenomena and cryptids--unknown animals such as Bigfoot--may predispose individuals to interpret real-world objects and events in the same way that eyewitness identification can be biased by unrelated information (P. James and N. Thorpe, 1999). Psychological tendencies toward attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dissociation, and depression, even at subclinical levels, may be associated systematically with particular paranormal or cryptozoological beliefs. The authors evaluated these psychological tendencies using the Conners Adult ADHD Rating Scales (C. K. Conners, D. Erhardt, and E. Sparrow, 1999), the Dissociative Experiences Scale (L. Coleman & J. Clark, 1999), and the Beck Depression Inventory-II (A. T. Beck, 1996). They performed regression analyses against beliefs in ghosts, unidentified flying objects (UFOs), extrasensory perception (ESP), astrology, and cryptids. ADHD, dissociation, and depression were associated with enhanced tendencies toward paranormal and cryptozoological beliefs, although participants who believed in each of the phenomena differed from one another in predictable and psychologically distinguishable ways. Cognitively biasing influences of preexisting psychological tendencies may predispose individuals to specific perceptual and cognitive errors during confrontation of real-world phenomena.

Eyewitness Memory in Context: Toward a Taxonomy of Eyewitness Error

“…Witnesses who provide erroneous elements of backstory, of the future actions taken by a perpetrator, or even of personal involvement in the situation, need not be consciously lying; rather, they need only to have beliefs about what might have happened in the past, or about what might happen next, for those beliefs to become inextricably intertwined in the gestalt representations which may ultimately result in an erroneous conviction. The present results provide data on the relative prevalence with which these several types of error may occur; future research is absolutely essential to explore the sources of these errors, especially in terms of individual psychology (see Sharps et al 2006;Sharps et al 2007) and of the ramifications of these errors both for cognitive representations in the abstract and for the application of such representations in real-world police and courtroom proceedings.…”

“…We have no idea of the dynamics or personal experiences underlying these specific cases. However, the documentation of this type of very rare effect may help to explain situations in which respondents report personal involvement in fantastic episodes in the forensic realm, or even with reference to alleged supernatural encounters (e.g., Sharps et al 2006), without any indication, from polygraph or other sources, that they are lying.…”

Paranormal Encounters as Eyewitness Phenomena: Psychological Determinants of Atypical Perceptual Interpretations

“…These predictive associations were suggested by theoretical considerations discussed in detail in the previous article (Sharps et al 2006). For example, depressed individuals can relate to ghosts as evidence of an afterlife in which things might get better.…”

“…In an earlier paper (Sharps et al 2006), we found that specific psychological tendencies were systematically associated with particular types of paranormal or cryptozoological beliefs. These tendencies, evaluated by means of standard psychological instruments, included subclinical levels of hyperactivity/impulsiveness, dissociation, and depression.…”

“…Those with dissociative tendencies are less likely to open their beliefs to the type of analytical, feature-intensive criticism which would typically lead to a rejection of paranormal beliefs. Rather, they operate instead in a relatively Gestalt, wholistic cognitive realm, in which the absence of specific feature-intensive analysis allows illogical connections within paranormal belief systems to go undetected (Sharps et al 2006; also see Sharps 2003).…”