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Neural correlates of Mystical Experience
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... Paranormal beliefs are beliefs, entities, practices, and processes that contradict the basic limiting principles of science (FioRito et al., 2020) and include believing in traditional religion, extrasensory perception, witchcraft, superstition, telekinesis, spiritualism, magical thinking, and precognition (Wilson, 2018). Cognitive neuroscience research on paranormal ideas has proposed the paranormal belief executive inhibition hypothesis (Narmashiri et al., 2017(Narmashiri et al., , 2019(Narmashiri et al., , 2021Cristofori et al., 2016;Wain & Spinella, 2007). As a reaction to authoritative propositions, executive down-regulation is theorized to underpin paranormal beliefs (Deeley, 2003). ...
... Given that, some band activities such as the alpha, beta, and gamma in the frontal lobe were associated with cognitive function; therefore, we concentrated on alpha, beta, and gamma bands activity in the present study. Previous studies have shown dysfunction in the frontal lobe in supernatural beliefs and paranormal phenomena (Cristofori et al., 2016;Wain & Spinella, 2007). Therefore, according to the Executive Inhibition Hypothesis, we expected that dysfunction of the frontal lobe would be associated with increase paranormal beliefs due to the FC role in regulating inhibition and evidence showing FC regions deactivation in paranormal experience. ...
... The findings expectedly revealed that low frontal region activity is negatively related to paranormal believers. Earlier works observed paranormal beliefs and phenomena to be associated with functionality reduction in frontal regions, particularly within the prefrontal cortex (Cristofori et al., 2016;Wain & Spinella, 2007). These findings well agree with the executive inhibition hypothesis. ...
Introduction: Paranormal beliefs are defined as believing in extrasensory perception, precognition, witchcraft, and telekinesis, magical thinking, psychokinesis, superstitions. Previous studies corroborate that executive brain functions underpin paranormal beliefs. To test causal hypotheses, neurophysiological studies of brain activity are required. Method: A sample of 20 students (10 females, age: 22.50 ± 4.07 years) were included for the current study. The absolute power of resting-state EEG in intrahemispheric and interhemispheric coherence was analyzed with eyes opened. The paranormal beliefs were determined based on the total score of the Revised Paranormal Belief Scale (RPBS). Result: The results of this study demonstrated that there was a significant negative relationship between paranormal beliefs and EEG resting state in alpha band activity in the frontal lobe (left hemisphere), EEG coherence of alpha and beta1, beta2, and gamma band activities in the frontal lobe (right hemisphere) and coherence of alpha and beta1, beta2 and gamma band activities between frontal regions (two hemispheres). In addition, the results showed that coherence of alpha, alpha1, beta, and beta2 band activities between frontal lobe (right hemispheres) and EEG coherence of delta, alpha1, and band activities in the frontal lobe (two hemispheres) predicted paranormal beliefs. Conclusion: This study confirms connecting executive brain functions to paranormal beliefs, and determines that frontal brain functioning may contribute to paranormal beliefs.
... Similarly, the observation that religious believers show a reduced brain response to errors (Inzlicht, McGregor, Hirsh, & Nash, 2009;Inzlicht & Tullett, 2010) has led to the idea that reduced error monitoring and prefrontal cortex functioning could be associated with the acceptance of religious ideas. In line with this suggestion, it has been found that patients with damage to the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) have a higher likelihood of having encountered a mystical experience (Cristofori et al., 2016). Thus, the initial steps toward unraveling the neural substrates of religiosity appear promising. ...
... And a clinical study involving data from 103 participants at low or high risk for depression found that increased importance of religion and spirituality were associated with increased cortical thickness of the mesial frontal lobe (Miller et al., 2014). A study with data from 116 patients with traumatic brain injury found that lesions to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the middle/superior temporal cortex were associated with increased mysticism (Cristofori et al., 2016). Similarly, it was found in 119 patients with traumatic brain injury that lesions of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC, which is anatomically synonymous with the OFC; Phillips, MacPherson, & Della Sala, 2002) were associated with an increase in religious fundamentalism (Zhong, Cristofori, Bulbulia, Krueger, & Grafman, 2017). ...
... There are multiple ways in which a power analysis could be conducted. Here, we based the estimated effect size on the reported effects in neuroanatomical studies on religiosity and mystical experience (Cristofori et al., 2016;Hayward et al., 2011;Owen et al., 2011;Van Schuerbeek et al., 2011). Although these papers did not always provide sufficient detail to obtain a standardized effect size, overall the reported effects were small, that is, β-values ranged from .12 to .22 ...
The neural substrates of religious belief and experience are an intriguing though contentious topic. Here we had the unique opportunity to establish the relation between validated measures of religiosity and gray matter volume in a large sample of participants (N = 211). In this registered report we conducted a confirmatory Voxel-Based Morphometry (VBM) analysis to test three central hypotheses regarding the relationship between religiosity and mystical experiences and gray matter volume. The preregisterered hypotheses, analysis plan, preprocessing and analysis code, and statistical brain maps are all available from online repositories. By using a region-of-interest (ROI) analysis, we found no evidence that religiosity is associated with a reduced volume of the orbito-frontal cortex and changes in the structure of the bilateral inferior parietal lobes. Neither did we find support for the notion that mystical experiences are associated with a reduced volume of the hippocampus, the right middle temporal gyrus or with the inferior parietal lobes. A whole-brain analysis furthermore indicated that no structural brain differences were found in association with religiosity and mystical experiences. We believe that the search for the neural correlates of religious beliefs and experiences should therefore shift focus from studying structural brain differences to a functional and multivariate approach.
... Mystical experiences can be elicited under certain conditions and settings, such as experiences in nature, religious settings (e.g., prayer, ritual), drugs, sexual intercourse, sensory deprivation, and even under "sham" treatment conditions (Andersen et al. 2014;Hood 1977Hood , 2001. Although mystical experiences recruit numerous brain regions (van Elk and Aleman 2017), of interest to the current study is their overlap with areas involved in mentalizing and absorption-like states (Beauregard and Paquette 2006;Cristofori et al. 2016;Mitchell 2009;van Elk and Aleman 2017;Wickramasekera 2015). Moreover, studying the contributions of mentalizing, absorption, and ritual practice to mystical experiences supports recent calls for cognitive science of religion to focus less on belief and more on the role of experiences that support belief in relation to universal cognitive processes (Van Leeuwen and van Elk 2018; Wiebe 2013). ...
... In study one, there was a stronger relationship between absorption and mysticism for individuals with lower levels of mentalizing. Due to the theoretical importance of mentalizing for experiences deemed religious and/or mystical (Cristofori et al. 2016;van Elk and Aleman 2017), this is a potentially interesting interaction. It suggests that, although experiences of the divine are mediated by mentalizing processes (Kapogiannis et al. 2009;Reddish et al. 2016;Schaap-Jonker et al. 2013), trait absorption may facilitate these experiences when mentalizing ability is lower than normal. ...
... It suggests that, although experiences of the divine are mediated by mentalizing processes (Kapogiannis et al. 2009;Reddish et al. 2016;Schaap-Jonker et al. 2013), trait absorption may facilitate these experiences when mentalizing ability is lower than normal. In part, our current finding was foreshadowed by Cristofori et al. (2016), who intimated the possibility that attentional processes (such as those captured by absorption) might be able to facilitate mystical experiences without substantial input from mentalizing processes. However, in study two we were unable to replicate the interaction between absorption and mentalizing. ...
Research suggests trait absorption, individual differences in Theory of Mind (ToM), and orthopraxical training are important for explaining a variety of extraordinary experiences typically associated with religion. However, no studies exist quantifying ToM ability or testing its relationship with trait absorption in the prediction of what is arguably the most ubiquitous type of extraordinary experience—the mystical experience. To address this, two exploratory studies were conducted using a sample of meditators (N = 269) and undergraduate students (N = 123). In study one, regression analyses revealed weekly religious/spiritual practice, absorption, and mentalizing predict increased mystical experiences. Moreover, moderation analysis indicated the absorption-mysticism relationship is stronger among individuals with lower mentalizing ability. Study two only replicated the relationship of absorption and weekly practice with mysticism. These studies highlight the robust contribution of absorption in mystical experiences and suggest a more dynamic role for mentalizing than is accounted for in the current literature.
... The question remains, however, as to whether a lack of cognitive flexibility causes one to choose religious belief, if religious affiliation stifles cognitive flexibility, or if there is an interaction effect. Cristofori et al. (2016) studied patients who had had traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and found that they had lower scores on a sorting test that has traditionally been one measure of cognitive flexibility. Those patients also reported having had significantly more mystical experiences, defined as experiences interacting with supernatural forces, than the healthy controls. ...
... A belief in supernatural agents underlies all religious belief (Cristofori et al., 2016;Kapogiannis et al., 2014). Some researchers attribute belief in supernatural agents and the development of religion to the evolution of Theory of Mind, higher order thought processes that take place predominantly in the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex. ...
... Research has indicated that belief in supernatural agents is linked to hallucinations and psychiatric disorders, so there has been speculation that some religious experiences may be the result of dysfunction in certain areas of the brain (Cristofori et al., 2016). Studies have shown that among seemingly healthy individuals, there is diminished function in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) when they take part in the religious practice of speaking in tongues or in response to charismatic religious speakers. ...
Religious ideology and extremism have had an increasing influence on political agendas in the United States and much of the developed world in the past 60 years, with right-wing ideology becoming more prevalent this decade. This article serves as a review of studies investigating the correlations between political ideology, religiosity, right-wing authoritarianism, ingroups/outgroups, and prejudice in an attempt to describe and understand the well-established links between these dimensions. We discuss several group-level theories including Terror Management Theory, Social Identity Theory, Realistic Group Conflict Theory among others to frame the intercorrelations of these constructs in an effort to better understand the underlying mechanisms that drive individuals to embody religious and political beliefs. We then discuss individual-level cognitive and psychological differences such as intelligence, cognitive flexibility, and specific biological and neurological limitations of brain function that may influence people to adopt certain religious and political beliefs. Through a more comprehensive understanding of the underlying mechanisms of religious and political extremism, we may be better equipped to assuage the fear and denigration that is associated with many of these beliefs.
... A link can be made here to how many deconvert from religion around adolescence, which is when this part of the brain develops further and doubt processing increases (Asp & Tranel, 2013). However, despite parts of the brain being associated with experiences that individuals view as religious or mystical experiences (Cristofori et al., 2016), no relationship has been found between the volume or changed volume of any areas of the brain and mystical experiences (van Elk & Snoek, 2020). ...
... Damage to frontal and temporal brain regions have been associated, often causally, with hyper-religiosity and mystical experiences (Carmona-Bayonas, Jiménez-Fonseca, Olmos, & Villar, 2017;Cristofori et al., 2016). These changes are not always direct; for example, right parietal lobe dysfunction can result in increased spiritual transcendence as a result of decreasing self-awareness (Johnstone & Glass, 2008). ...
This draft book chapter reviews and extends current evolutionary perspectives on atheism.
... Some of the earliest studies on the brain basis of religious belief began with observations of religious episodes in patients with right temporal lobe epilepsy (Devinsky & Lai, 2008). Our group has attempted to understand the neural underpinning of religious beliefs by analyzing the associations among religious beliefs, cognitive processing, and the location of brain damage in male Vietnam combat veterans with penetrating traumatic brain injuries (Cristofori et al., 2016;Zhong, Cristofori, Bulbulia, Krueger, & Grafman, 2017). Cristofori et al. and Zhong et al. both found that reported mystical experiences appear to be regulated by the dlPFC and middle/superior temporal cortex. ...
... Regardless of the religious-belief task used, convergent evidence measuring ERPs, neuroimaging results, and lesion-mapping studies (Cristofori et al., 2016;Urgesi, Aglioti, Skrap, & Fabbro, 2010) indicates that the frontal and anterior temporal lobes play prominent and disproportionate roles in storing key aspects of religious belief and behavior while exerting a modifying influence on perceptual and other sensory processes that may be biased toward reflexive, intuitive, and supernatural interpretations of sensory experience. Socialcognition brain networks, including theory-of-mind regions in the MPFC, IFG, TPJ, and precuneus, and emotional regulation and reappraisal regions in the dmPFC and vlPFC, are critically involved in rationalizing God's intent and emotions. ...
Religion’s neural underpinnings have long been a topic of speculation and debate, but an emerging neuroscience of religion is beginning to clarify which regions of the brain integrate moral, ritual, and supernatural religious beliefs with functionally adaptive responses. Here, we review evidence indicating that religious cognition involves a complex interplay among the brain regions underpinning cognitive control, social reasoning, social motivations, and ideological beliefs.
... 35 Another study by Cristofori et al. found correlation between damage to frontal and temporal brain regions, specifically dlPFC and middle and/or superior temporal cortex (TC), and mystical experience, which underlines religious beliefs. 36 Interesting fact is, that despite inability to isolate mystical religious experience to a single brain region, the areas held accountable for mysticism (dlPFC, TC) according to accumulated empirical data are the same regions that play a role in delusional symptoms in patients suffering from schizophrenia, high levels of neuroticism, mania, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. 37 ٫ 38 Overall, there is an overwhelming amount of evidence supporting the dependence of religious fundamentalism on the functioning of PFC, linking it to higher-order cognitive processes. ...
... L. Hejdánek, Dění a změna, Dění a změna, ONLINE: https://www.hejdanek.eu/Functions/get_text.php?id=1244&mime=4,[27. 5. 2018].35 L. Hejdánek, Pojetí subjektu (Výklad disertační práce), ONLINE: https://www.hejdanek.eu/Functions/get_text.php?id=1262&mime=4,[27. 5. 2018].36 Viz. ...
„The concept of euro-scepticism as an example of the use of conceptual power.“ The present article thematises the concept of euro-scepticism as an example of the use of so called conceptual power. It indroduces the term conceptual power, as it is used in so called Sufficiently Universal Theory of Ruling, which has been produced a partly anonymous collective presenting itself under pseudonym Internal Predictor. The introduced theory is further clarified with the helf of the example of two types of conceptualisation, which is can be apllied on the spectrum of european integration positions. It suggest a hypothesis, that the usual conceptualisation can be characterised as dualistic, it proposes an alternative ternary conceptualisation, and it points out the (dis)advantages of both discussed conceptualisations.
... 35 Another study by Cristofori et al. found correlation between damage to frontal and temporal brain regions, specifically dlPFC and middle and/or superior temporal cortex (TC), and mystical experience, which underlines religious beliefs. 36 Interesting fact is, that despite inability to isolate mystical religious experience to a single brain region, the areas held accountable for mysticism (dlPFC, TC) according to accumulated empirical data are the same regions that play a role in delusional symptoms in patients suffering from schizophrenia, high levels of neuroticism, mania, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. 37 ٫ 38 Overall, there is an overwhelming amount of evidence supporting the dependence of religious fundamentalism on the functioning of PFC, linking it to higher-order cognitive processes. ...
... L. Hejdánek, Dění a změna, Dění a změna, ONLINE: https://www.hejdanek.eu/Functions/get_text.php?id=1244&mime=4,[27. 5. 2018].35 L. Hejdánek, Pojetí subjektu (Výklad disertační práce), ONLINE: https://www.hejdanek.eu/Functions/get_text.php?id=1262&mime=4,[27. 5. 2018].36 Viz. ...
„Why and how to stop supporting education“ This text was the basis of a lecture at the annual meeting of the Jan Hus Educational Foundation in Mikulov in October 2017. I am omitting passages that relate exclusively to the work of this foundation. In the text, I try to answer the questions about the state of education in Bohemia and what can be done by an independent educational foundation for its improvement. I do not dare to speak about the state of education as such, because it is too multi-layered and colorful space. As I work in public education, I focus on public education. My experience relates to the teaching of philosophy, but I will speak about the whole state educational system because in it tertiary education and lower levels of education are interdependent. I'm not sure if my thoughts can be applied to natural sciences and technical disciplines. However, I believe that even those fields would benefit from the proposed radical liberalization.
... Previous research has found that the suppression of functionality in the PFC is linked to both supernatural beliefs (Wain & Spinella, 2007) and supernatural experiences (Cristofori et al., 2016). Our findings are in accord with this frontal regulatory role. ...
... Despite theories that magical thinking renders religion plausible (Malinowski, 1948), our observation for a causal path from religion to magic is more consistent with the constraints imposed on beliefs dependent upon a social coordination system. The results also merge nicely with previous research on various aspects of human beliefs and bolster the important role that the human frontal lobes play in storing and modulating religious beliefs and related social and cognitive processes (Cristofori et al., 2016;Zhong, Cristofori, Bulbulia, Krueger, & Grafman, 2017). ...
Magical ideation refers to beliefs about causality that lack empirical bases. Few studies have investigated the neural correlates of magical thinking and religious beliefs. Here, we investigate the association between magical ideation and religious experience in a sample of Vietnam veterans who sustained penetrating traumatic brain injury (pTBI) and matched healthy controls. Scores on the Magical Ideation Scale were positively correlated with scores on the Religious Experience Scale but only in pTBI patients. Lesion mapping analyses in subgroups of pTBI patients indicated that prefrontal cortex (PFC) lesions were associated with increased magical ideation scores, and this relationship was mediated by religious experience. Our findings clarify the mechanism by which the frontal lobe processes modulate magical beliefs. Suppression of the PFC opens people to religious experiences, which in turn increases magical ideation.
... A link can be made here to how many deconvert from religion around adolescence, which is when this part of the brain develops further and doubt processing increases (Asp & Tranel, 2013). However, despite parts of the brain being associated with experiences that individuals view as religious or mystical experiences (Cristofori et al., 2016), no relationship has been found between the volume or changed volume of any areas of the brain and mystical experiences (van Elk & Snoek, 2020). ...
... Damage to frontal and temporal brain regions have been associated, often causally, with hyper-religiosity and mystical experiences (Carmona-Bayonas, Jiménez-Fonseca, Olmos, & Villar, 2017;Cristofori et al., 2016). These changes are not always direct; for example, right parietal lobe dysfunction can result in increased spiritual transcendence as a result of decreasing self-awareness (Johnstone & Glass, 2008). ...
This chapter reviews and extends current evolutionary perspectives on atheism.
... Our results also challenge the "false belief tagging" hypothesis. Religious fundamentalism would quickly become maladaptive were it simply false beliefor confabulation, as pointed out in theoretical work by Bulbulia (2009) (for a discussion see Cristofori, Bulbulia, et al., 2015). To reiterate, the present study provides new knowledge about the brain and cognitive bases of belief by linking fundamentalism to general cognitive functions computed in the PFC related to openness, which is, critically, a continuous cognitive process. ...
... We found that when vmPFC lesion size is controlled for, greater relative dlPFC lesion damage was associated with greater reductions in cognitive flexibility and openness, and that less cognitive flexibility and openness in turn predicts an increase in fundamentalist beliefs. This finding is in line with the pivotal role of the dlPFC in orchestrating task-switching, and therefore cognitive flexibility (Bunge & Crone, 2009; Evidence suggests that social cognitive processing underpins the categorization of religious experiences (Cristofori, Bulbulia, et al., 2015;Schjoedt, Stdkilde-Jorgensen, Geertz, & Roepstorff, 2009). Religious experiences are subjective experiences, interpreted within a religious framework and are considered real encounters with God or gods, or real contact with higher-order entities. ...
Beliefs profoundly affect people's lives, but their cognitive and neural pathways are poorly understood. Although previous research has identified the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) as critical to representing religious beliefs, the means by which vmPFC enables religious belief is uncertain. We hypothesized that the vmPFC represents diverse religious beliefs and that a vmPFC lesion would be associated with religious fundamentalism, or the narrowing of religious beliefs. To test this prediction, we assessed religious adherence with a widely-used religious fundamentalism scale in a large sample of 119 patients with penetrating traumatic brain injury (pTBI). If the vmPFC is crucial to modulating diverse personal religious beliefs, we predicted that pTBI patients with lesions to the vmPFC would exhibit greater fundamentalism, and that this would be modulated by cognitive flexibility and trait openness. Instead, we found that participants with dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) lesions have fundamentalist beliefs similar to patients with vmPFC lesions and that the effect of a dlPFC lesion on fundamentalism was significantly mediated by decreased cognitive flexibility and openness. These findings indicate that cognitive flexibility and openness are necessary for flexible and adaptive religious commitment, and that such diversity of religious thought is dependent on dlPFC functionality.
... According to this model, spiritual and mystical experience are the product of neurological pathology. Other examples of this perspective can be found in studies of mystical experiences among head trauma patients (Cristofori et al., 2016) and in an introduction to a special issue on neuroscience and the paranormal, published in the journal Cortex (Brugger & Mohr, 2008). In that article, anomalous experiences such as telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition, all of which can be found in the literature of spiritual and mystical experiences, are defi ned as delu- sions. ...
Mystical experiences and spiritual dreams have been studied to learn how to defi ne them, who has them, and
why. Rarely is the content taken seriously except as evidence of physical or psychological pathology, religious beliefs, or
the infl uence of local culture. A challenge posed by spiritual dream content and mystical experiences in general, is that
spiritual experiences refer exclusively to things that cannot be tested because they supposedly exist in a non-physical
continuum. For this reason, spiritual or mystical content is generally described as ‘subjective’ in the literature. However,
there can be some overlap with objectively veridical psi content. This research utilizes a single dataset comprised of 34
dream journals containing 12,224 dream records produced by this author over the past 27 years to explore the relationship
between veridical and spiritual content in dreams. The results suggest that it is unreasonable to characterize all
spiritual content as subjective when veridical secondary evidence is available. It also suggests that so-called ‘folkloric’ or
‘primitive’ explanations for dreams are more consistent with the data than modern psychological, cultural, or neurological
explanations.
... Because this review only focused on fMRI data on the single variable of "religious belief," inclusion of these other topics, each of which would merit its own review, would be too broad and is beyond the scope of this review. For example, although the phenomenon of a subjective experience by a sense of union with God that characterized the mystical experience has been reported worldwide, and has been studied in Carmelite nuns (Beauregard and Paquette, 2006), mystical experiences have been reported with ictal, peri-ictal, and post-ictal states associated with temporal epilepsy, and lesions to the frontal and temporal brain regions were linked with greater mystical experience (Cristofori et al., 2016). These could be considered unique or induced religious/spiritual practices or experiences. ...
This article summarizes key functional magnetic resonance imaging studies that correlate the neural substrate of religious belief and the influence of culture. I searched and updated PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed) publications until March 2018 on religious belief and related topics. Belief, whether religious or nonreligious, is associated with greater signal in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vMPFC), a brain region important for self-representation, emotional associations, reward, and goal-driven behavior. However, religious belief, compared with nonreligious belief, registers greater signal in the precuneus, anterior insula, ventral striatum, anterior cingulate cortex, and posterior medial cortex-areas associated with governance of emotion, self-representation, and cognitive conflict. In contrast, nonreligious belief registers more signal in the left hemisphere memory networks (Harris et al. PLoS One 2009;4:e0007272). Moreover, cultural studies revealed self-judgment tasks in nonbelievers involved more the vMPFC, whereas Christians had significantly increased activation in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (Han et al. Soc Neurosci 2008;3:1-15). Consequently, the Christian belief of "surrendering to Christ" seemed to weaken neural coding of stimulus self-relatedness but enhanced neural activity underlying evaluative processes of self-referential stimuli. The findings suggest a transformation of the semantic autobiographical self to Christ's conceptual self.
... Obviously, the statement "in our view, this does not represent a major problem since the phenomenological data indicate that the subjects actually experienced genuine mystical experiences during the mystical condition" is not true. During year 2016, Cristofori, Bulbulia, Shaver, Wilson, Krueger and Grafman published a paper about the neural correlates of mystical experience [6] . The authors begin by saying that "mystical experiences can be defined as fusion with a supernatural agent", a quite unscientific statement. ...
... Some studies have relied on comparisons between normal controls and patients who have suffered brain injuries. Patients with lesions to frontal and temporal regions report a greater number of mystical experiences compared to matched controls, indicating that intact executive function may down-regulate such experiences (Cristofori et al. 2015). The most compelling studies in terms of drawing causal connections are those that have utilized neural stimulation. ...
Subjective religious and spiritual experiences (RS) are believed by many to be reliable indicators of external agency. A set of related phenomena are used to support this view that typically involve intuitions or attributions of mental interaction or experiences with RS agents. The present review integrates empirical findings from the fields of the Cognitive Sciences of Religion, experimental social psychology, and neuropsychology to support the position that individuals misattribute RS thoughts and experiences. That is, these experiences are believed to be veridical indicators of external agency when in fact they are subject to materialistic causal influences. This tendency varies as a function of individual differences and contextual conditions. RS phenomena can be artificially generated in a way that is phenomenologically indistinguishable from spontaneous experiences. Intuitions of external agency are rationalized and confabulated, leaving the mistaken impression of validation by analytic processes. The theoretical and philosophical implications of findings are discussed.
... 12 This idea in a way slightly reframes the Cognitive Resource Depletion Model: through processes of lowering executive function and/or cognitive control, but also of heightening emotional processing, religious rituals may be crucially "intuitive thinking inducing." This idea is supported by findings of increased religious belief and/or experiences through decreased activation in brain regions involved in executive function and cognitive control (Cristofori et al., 2016;Holbrook, Izuma, Deblieck, Fessler, & Iacoboni, 2016;Schjoedt, Stødkilde-Jørgensen, Geertz, Lund, & Roepstorff, 2011). Thus, in addition to processes such as emotion suppression, causal opacity or high levels of arousal might be ways to induce intuitive thinking, but this remains to be investigated empirically. ...
Autobiographical memory and religion both have the ability to guide us in our understanding of the world. One place where memory and religion intersect is in religious rituals, which have the potential to generate important memories. Religious rituals with high levels of arousal are expected to generate especially vivid memories. In this article, previous experimental anthropological work on memory and religious rituals will be discussed within the context of an extensive background of autobiographical and episodic memory research (including aspects like episodicity, emotionality, valence, and specificity), accompanied by recommendations for future research in the cognitive science of religion. Moreover, a novel perspective, based on the literature of narrative processing, memory reconstruction, and reflection, will be proposed. In this article, it is suggested that the experience of the ritual itself may be the goal of high-arousal religious rituals, giving rise to memories with high levels of emotionality. The subsequent narrative processing of these memories, in which interpretation rather than accuracy is pivotal, allows the memories to become an important part of the participants’ life narratives, thus contributing to the participants’ identities and sense of coherence and purpose.
... Going beyond cognitive assessment-based research on religion, an increasing number of studies tap into the neural processes underlying religiosity (Brown & Strawn, 2012;McNamara, 2009;van Elk & Aleman, 2017). While most of the neural studies of religion focus on religious experiences and practices, such as mystical experiences and prayer in adult individuals (Beauregard & Paquette, 2006Cristofori et al., 2016;Doufesh et al., 2012;Greyson et al., 2015), there is also a growing interest in the neural basis of religious cognition. For instance, several studies have investigated the N400 component, a negative ERP deflection peaking around 400 ms post stimulus in the central parietal area, in response to statements that contradict individual beliefs (Izzidien & Chennu, 2018;van Berkum et al., 2009). ...
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.
... CSR uses a wide variety of methods, ranging from ethnographic observation (Cohen 2007;Xygalatas 2012) and textual analysis (Slingerland and Chudek 2011) to brain studies (Cristofori et al. 2015;Schjoedt et al. 2011) and computer simulations (Nielbo and Sørensen 2012). Following an initial period of purely theoretical applications of cognitive perspectives to religion, CSR turned towards experimental hypothesis testing. ...
... The causal underpinnings of mystical experience are a matter of philosophical discussion. They are commonly deliberately provoked through meditation, psychoactive substance use, and sacred ritual, but also arise unexpectedly in the context of psychologically absorptive erotic and aesthetic experiences (Hood et al., 2009); physical illness and injury (Cristofori et al., 2016;Greyson et al., 2015); and prolonged or severe stress and emotional upheaval (Jackson, 2010;Proudfoot & Shaver, 1975). Neuroimaging studies on mystical experiences in meditators and hallucinogen users suggest that the perceived boundlessness of self and altered salience processing characteristic of these states are linked to the desegration and disintegration of various brain networks (Carhart-Harris et al., 2016;Garrison et al., 2015;Wahbeh et al., 2018). ...
In religious individuals, spontaneous mystical experiences (SMEs) tend to reinforce pre-existing beliefs and are associated with enhanced wellbeing, mediated by adaptive interpretive frameworks and accepting social environments. The meaning-making and outcomes of SMEs among atheists have not been investigated to date. Using a grounded theory approach, the present study found that the SMEs of eight male and female atheists of diverse backgrounds resembled those of religious experiencers in phenomenal content, but differed with respect to appraisal, coping, and outcome. Challenges in reconciling the SME with secular views and values were common and were linked to varying degrees and durations of psychological distress, especially in relation to negative reactions from the social environment. No participant embraced organized religion, but most adopted more agnostic or spiritual worldviews, and ultimately associated their SMEs with enhanced wellbeing in various domains. However, participants who reported persisting preoccupation and doubt about their SMEs experienced deteriorating mental health.
... The VHIS is a long-term study of male combat veterans with focal, penetrating traumatic brain injury (pTBI) and a matched sample of combat veterans who also served in Vietnam but did not sustain brain injuries (Raymont, Salazar, Krueger, & Grafman, 2011). Our group has previously published data on the neural basis of mystical experiences (Cristofori et al., 2016) and religious fundamentalism (Zhong et al., 2017) based on this registry. ...
A strong personal relationship with God is theoretically and empirically associated with an enhanced sense of control. While a growing body of research is focused on understanding the neural mechanisms underlying religious belief, little is known about the brain basis of the link between a personal relationship with God and sense of control. Here, we used a sample of patients with focal brain lesions (N = 84) and matched healthy controls (N = 22) to determine whether damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC)—a region associated with emotionally meaningful religious experiences and with sense of control—will modulate self-reports of a personal relationship with God and sense of control. We also examined potential mediators for these associations. Voxel-based lesion symptom mapping revealed that damage to the right vmPFC resulted in a stronger personal relationship with God, and patients with damage to this region demonstrated an increased sense of control relative to patients with damage to posterior cortex and healthy controls. Moreover, the association between vmPFC damage and greater perceived sense of control was mediated by a stronger personal relationship with God. Collectively, these results suggest that a strong personal relationship with God can serve an important psychological function by affecting sense of control, with both enhanced following damage to the right vmPFC.
... It has been shown that experiencing awe leads individuals to attribute the cause of environmental events to external agents (Valdesolo & Graham, 2014) as experiencing awe increases one's tendency to believe in supernatural agents and perceive human agency in random events (Valdesolo & Graham, 2014). Moreover, mystical experience, which often arise the feelings of awe, have been linked with hallucinations that characterise schizophrenia (Cristofori et al., 2016). Given that the experience of awe decreases one's sense of control , these findings suggest that awe leads individuals to diminish their sense of self-agency. ...
Awe is an emotional response to perceptually vast stimuli that transcend one’s current frames of reference. Previous research indicated that awe promotes a smaller self, which led to the creation of a small-self hypothesis. Thus, we shed new light on this hypothesis in terms of sense of body ownership using a rubber hand illusion experiment; through it, we showed that awe evokes an increased sense of body ownership over the rubber hand and this effect was prominent among participants who experienced small self. Our findings suggest that awe might provoke a “liberation of the self” in terms of a sense of body ownership as awe has been thought to liberate existing schemas, hence informing the demonstrable implications of the psychological mechanisms of awe.
... An example of the latter is the initial hypothesis that ancient rock art sound environments are endowed with special acoustics and that these acoustic properties enhanced sacred practices for which sound was important. A specific mystical experience does not only rely on a cultural dimension, although ultimately the results related to biological universals could lead to the understanding of common structures prone to this mystical experience (Krueger and Grafman, 2012;Maselko, 2012;Cristofori et al., 2016). There is also a need for an interdisciplinary discussion regarding the cultural dimension of acoustic parameters extracted from an archaeological site. ...
How important is the influence of spatial acoustics on our mental processes related to sound perception and cognition? There is a large body of research in fields encompassing architecture, musicology, and psychology that analyzes human response, both subjective and objective, to different soundscapes. But what if we want to understand how acoustic environments influenced the human experience of sound in sacred ritual practices in premodern societies? Archaeoacoustics is the research field that investigates sound in the past. One of its branches delves into how sound was used in specific landscapes and at sites with rock art, and why past societies endowed a special significance to places with specific acoustical properties. Taking advantage of the advances made in sound recording and reproduction technologies, researchers are now exploring how ancient social and sacred ceremonies and practices related to the acoustic properties of their sound environment. Here, we advocate for the emergence of a new and innovative discipline, experimental psychoarchaeoacoustics. We also review underlying methodological approaches and discuss the limitations, challenges, and future directions for this new field.
... Partially consistent with SSHM, CSS, and MEMAE models that make predictions about change toward a non-narrative self, the current study points to changes in self that include detachment and disidentification, which suggest a diminishment of the narrative self-phenomenological results, which are also consistent with reduced default-mode activity in neural studies related to meditation, psychedelic use, and mystical experience (Farb et al., 2007(Farb et al., , 2016Garrison et al., 2015;Cristofori et al., 2016;Carhart-Harris et al., 2018). ...
Research on meditation and mindfulness practice has flourished in recent years. While much of this research has focused on well-being outcomes associated with mindfulness practice, less research has focused on how perception of self may change as a result of mindfulness practice, or whether these changes in self-perception may be mechanisms of mindfulness in action. This is somewhat surprising given that mindfulness derives from traditions often described as guiding people to realize and experience the non-separation of self from the world or its “oneness” with the whole of reality. The current study used a collective intelligence methodology, Interactive Management (IM), to explore the nature of oneness experiences. Five IM sessions were conducted with five separate groups of experienced meditators. Participants generated, clarified, and selected oneness self-perceptions they believed most characterized their experience both during meditation and in their everyday experience in the world. Each group also developed structural models describing how highly ranked aspects of oneness self-perceptions are interrelated in a system. Consistent themes and categories of oneness experience appeared across the five IM sessions, with changes in the sense of space (unboundedness), time, identity, wholeness, and flow highlighted as most influential. Results are discussed in light of emerging theory and research on oneness self-perception and non-dual awareness.
... A homeostatic role of different components of frontal and temporal cortex in regulating mystical experience has recently been identified in a study of the neural correlates of mystical experience by Cristofori et al. (2016). The authors speculate that the executive functions of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex play a role in the production of mystical experiences by constraining naı¨ve interpretations of the basis and meaning of perceptual experiences. ...
The prevalence of reported subjective paranormal experience (SPE) is at high levels in all populations investigated to date. This article presents a new integrative theory of SPE in light of the brain’s homeostatic response to early trauma. I hold that developmental factors in the brain’s responses to trauma predispose victimized individuals towards SPE and paranormal beliefs. I examine the reported associations between childhood abuse, dissociation, depersonalization, compartmentalization, fantasy generation, homeostasis and SPE. A new integrative theory of psychological homeostasis draws upon the mechanisms of dissociation and fantasy generation to explain the origins of SPE. Twelve hypotheses from the Homeostasis Theory are found to be consistent with the findings of multiple studies and falsifying evidence has yet to be identified. Freezing and associated releases of fantasy, which may take the form of SPE, serve as a survival strategy in the homeostatic regaining of safety and control following childhood abuse. Prospective research is necessary to deepen our understanding of the brain mechanisms required by the system described here.
... The Lakota vision quest is thus paradigmatic in centralizing antistructure by highlighting the body's core needs, and so shifting toward efficient-causal motives. Physical stressors may also overtax executive cognitive functions that have been found to downregulate religious ASCs (Cristofori et al. 2016). Other established means of activating culturally sanctioned religious ASCs, such as psychotropic drug use (Millière 2017) or repetitive drumming (Hove et al. 2016) operate along analogous lines. ...
The cognitive and evolutionary sciences of religion offer a standard model of religious representations, but no equivalent paradigm for investigating religiously interpreted altered states of consciousness (religious ASCs). Here, I describe a neo-Durkheimian framework for studying religious ASCs that centralizes social predic-tive cognition. Within a processual model of ritual, ritual behaviors toggle between reinforcing normative social structures and downplay-ing them. Specifically, antistructural ritual shifts cognitive focus away from conventional affordances, collective intentionality, and social prediction, and toward physical affordances and behavioral motivations that make few references to others' intentional states. Using synchrony and dance as paradigmatic examples of antistructural ritual that stimulate religious ASCs, I assemble literature from anthropology , cognitive neuroscience, and philosophy of language to offer fruitful empirical predictions and opportunities for testing based on this framework. Among the empirical predictions is that antistructural ritual may provide for cultural change in religions when religions are construed as complex adaptive systems.
Neurological research has made amazing strides in recent years. Enough is now known about what specific brain areas do to make it possible to start looking at how various parts of the brain interact. What is missing is a general theory of cognition to tie all of this information together. Back in the 1980s, a cognitive theory was developed that began with a system of cognitive styles and was expanded through an in-depth study of biographies. It was discovered at that time that this theory mapped in a general way onto the brain. This cognitive theory, known as the theory of mental symmetry, has recently been tested as a meta-theory by using it to analyze a number of fields and theories dealing with human thought and behavior. This paper shows that personality traits that were discovered by mental symmetry correspond in detail to the functioning of brain regions described in current neurological papers. In brief, the cognitive model suggests that there are seven cognitive styles: There are four simple styles, and there are three composite styles that combine the thinking of the simple styles. Two of the simple styles use emotions and emphasize a circuit composed of orbitofrontal cortex, inferior frontal cortex, temporal lobe, and amygdala, with one in the left hemisphere and the other in the right hemisphere. The other two simple styles use confidence and emphasize a circuit consisting of dorsolateral frontal cortex, frontopolar cortex, parietal cortex, and hippocampus, again with one in the left hemisphere and the other in the right hemisphere. The three composite styles form a processing chain. The first composite style combines the two simple emotional styles and emphasizes the ventral striatum, and dopamine. This leads to the second composite style, which combines the two simple confidence styles and emphasizes the anterior cingulate, the dorsal striatum, and serotonin. This is followed by the third composite style which balances the functioning of the mind and emphasizes the thalamus and noradrenaline.
(The file 'mapping_cognitive_theory_fixed.pdf' is an updated version that fixes typos and adds minor clarifications.)
We present the theory of predictive processing as a unifying framework to account for the neurocognitive basis of religion and spirituality. Our model is substantiated by discussing four different brain mechanisms that play a key role in religion and spirituality: temporal brain areas are associated with religious visions and ecstatic experiences; multisensory brain areas and the default mode network are involved in self-transcendent experiences; the Theory of Mind-network is associated with prayer experiences and overattribution of intentionality; top-down mechanisms instantiated in the anterior cingulate cortex and the medial prefrontal cortex could be involved in acquiring and maintaining intuitive supernatural beliefs. We compare the predictive processing model with two-systems accounts of religion and spirituality, by highlighting the central role of prediction error monitoring. We conclude by presenting novel predictions for future research and by discussing the philosophical and theological implications of neuroscientific research on religion and spirituality.
Neuroscientific scanning of meditators is taken as providing data on mystical experiences. However, problems concerning how the brain and consciousness are related cast doubts on whether any understanding of the content of meditative experiences is gained through the study of the brain. Whether neuroscience can study the subjective aspects of meditative experiences in general is also discussed. So too, whether current neuroscience can establish that there are “pure consciousness events” in mysticism is open to question. The discussion points to limitations on neuroscience's capability to add to our understanding of the phenomenological content of mystical experiences.
Genetic research has implicated dopamine neurotransmission in the expression of the self-transcendence trait in humans. However, molecular imaging of dopaminergic markers is undocumented in relation to this personality trait. In this multimodal imaging study, we first investigated the relationship between the self-transcendence trait and in vivo dopamine D2/3 receptor availability using [18 F]fallypride positron emission tomography (PET). We next conducted seed-based functional connectivity analyses using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) data with regions derived from the PET analysis as seeds to explore the functional significance of D2/3 receptor availability foci associated with the self-transcendence trait. Twenty-one healthy subjects underwent high-resolution PET with [18 F]fallypride and a subset of 18 subjects also completed 3-Tesla rs-fMRI. The Temperament and Character Inventory was used to measure the self-transcendence trait. A voxel-based whole brain analysis revealed that the [18 F]fallypride binding potential (BPND ) within the cluster of the left insula was significantly positively correlated with self-transcendence trait scores. A region-of-interest analysis also showed a significant positive correlation between self-transcendence and [18 F]fallypride BPND in the left insula. The exploratory [18 F]fallypride BPND seed-based rs-fMRI analysis showed that the functional connectivity from the left insula seed to the prefrontal cortices (including the inferior frontal region) was negatively associated with self-transcendence trait scores. The results of the present study suggest that D2/3 receptor-mediated neurotransmission in the left insula may constitute a significant neurobiological factor in the self-transcendence trait. The negative associations between BPND seed-based functional connectivity and self-transcendence trait scores may suggest reduced prefrontal control in this personality trait.
Neue Studien mit Psilocybin, LSD, Ibogain, 5-MeO-DMT sowie DMT in Verbindung mit MAOI beweisen, dass psychedelisch wirkenden Tryptaminen ein hohes therapeutisches Potenzial innewohnt. Beispielsweise bewirkt eine hochdosierte Einnahme von Psilocybin im Einsatz gegen Depression sowie Angst am Lebensende eine hochsignifikante Steigung des Wohlbefindens, die über Monate stabil bleibt. Psilocybin ist eng verwandt mit dem endogenen DMT, das neben dem ebenfalls endogenen 5-MeO-DMT die von allen psychedelisch wirkenden Substanzen unbestritten dezidierteste psychedelische Auswirkung evoziert. Dieses Verhältnis spricht dafür, dass die psychedelische Funktionsweise endogen veranlagt ist und die Illegalisierung von psychedelisch wirkenden Tryptaminen einer Illegalisierung eines im Menschen a priori angelegten Genesungspotenzials entspricht. Dieser Text zieht einen Bogen von der wissenschaftlichen Datenlage hin zur Stellung der psychedelischen Erfahrung in der Gesellschaft.
A comparison between Muḥammad and Siddhārtha's psychological states is made to identify how they had their mystical experiences and how their presuppositions and personalities shaped their interpretation of these experiences. Muḥammad's mystical experience appeared to be based on an altered state of consciousness. Siddhārtha's teachings include that one must not have blind faith and remain open to various truths. These teachings may reflect that he was high in openness to experience, which may have fortified him from becoming delusional. While mystical experiences may have pathological overlaps, they could be categorized in a similar way to psychological states. Yet, mindful presuppositions and personality traits, especially from within openness to experience spectrum, are what make perceptions of these experiences diverse.
We review previous attempts to study mystical experience and point to problems inherent to certain methodologies. Focusing on studies that use controlled environments we advocate taking an experimental approach to mysticism. To demonstrate the viability of this approach, we report findings from a new study that probes the potential for eliciting mystical experiences in the laboratory. We find that our experimental paradigm is indeed enough to elicit mystical experiences. Based on subjective ratings of experience, rich descriptions from interviews, and data obtained three months after the study, our data indicate that the experiences reported by the participants had a high degree of authenticity and had lasting effects in terms of memory and attribution. These findings demonstrate that at least some forms of mystical experience can be studied in a controlled environment. Prospects and limitations for the experimental approach to mysticism are discussed.
Given the determinant role of ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) in valuation, we examined whether vmPFC lesions also modulate how people scale political beliefs. Patients with penetrating traumatic brain injury (pTBI; N=102) and healthy controls (HC; N=31) were tested on the Political Belief Task, where they rated 75 statements expressing political opinions concerned with welfare, economy, political involvement, civil rights, war and security. Each statement was rated for level of agreement and scaled along three dimensions: radicalism, individualism, and conservatism. Voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM) analysis showed that diminished scores for the radicalism dimension (i.e., statements were rated as less radical than the norms) were associated with lesions in bilateral vmPFC. After dividing the pTBI patients into three groups, according to lesion location (i.e., vmPFC, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex [dlPFC] and parietal cortex), we found that the vmPFC, but not the dlPFC, group had reduced radicalism scores compared to parietal and HC groups. These findings highlight the crucial role of the vmPFC in appropriately valuing political behaviors and may explain certain inappropriate social judgments observed in patients with vmPFC lesions.
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Although ecological forces are known to shape the expression of sociality across a broad range of biological taxa, their role in shaping human behavior is currently disputed. Both comparative and experimental evidence indicate that beliefs in moralizing high gods promote cooperation among humans, a behavioral attribute known to correlate with environmental harshness in nonhuman animals. Here we combine fine-grained bioclimatic data with the latest statistical tools from ecology and the social sciences to evaluate the potential effects of environmental forces, language history, and culture on the global distribution of belief in moral-izing high gods (n = 583 societies). After simultaneously accounting for potential nonindependence among societies because of shared ancestry and cultural diffusion, we find that these beliefs are more prevalent among societies that inhabit poorer environments and are more prone to ecological duress. In addition, we find that these beliefs are more likely in politically complex societies that recognize rights to movable property. Overall, our multimodel inference ap-proach predicts the global distribution of beliefs in moralizing high gods with an accuracy of 91%, and estimates the relative impor-tance of different potential mechanisms by which this spatial pat-tern may have arisen. The emerging picture is neither one of pure cultural transmission nor of simple ecological determinism, but rather a complex mixture of social, cultural, and environmental influences. Our methods and findings provide a blueprint for how the increasing wealth of ecological, linguistic, and historical data can be leveraged to understand the forces that have shaped the behavior of our own species. religion | cultural evolution | environmental effects | ecological risk |
Deficits in the ability to understand and predict others' mental states is one of the central features of traumatic brain injury (TBI), leading to problems in social-daily life such as social withdrawal and inability to maintain work or family relationships. Although several functional neuroimaging studies have identified a widely distributed brain network involved in the reading the mind in the eyes test (RMET), the necessary brain regions engaged in this capacity are still heavily debated. In this study, we combined the RMET with a whole-brain voxel-based lesion symptom mapping (VLSM) approach to identify brain regions necessary for adequate RMET performance in a large sample of patients with penetrating TBI (pTBI). Our results revealed that pTBI patients performed worse on the RMET compared to non-head injured controls, and impaired RMET performance was associated with lesions in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). In summary, our findings suggest that the left IFG is a key region in reading the mind in the eyes; probably involved in a more general impairment of a semantic working memory system that facilitates reasoning about what others are feeling and thinking as expressed by the eyes.
Insight occurs when a person suddenly reinterprets a stimulus, situation, or event to produce a nonobvious, nondominant interpretation. This can take the form of a solution to a problem (an "aha moment"), comprehension of a joke or metaphor, or recognition of an ambiguous percept. Insight research began a century ago, but neuroimaging and electrophysiological techniques have been applied to its study only during the past decade. Recent work has revealed insight-related coarse semantic coding in the right hemisphere and internally focused attention preceding and during problem solving. Individual differences in the tendency to solve problems insightfully rather than in a deliberate, analytic fashion are associated with different patterns of resting-state brain activity. Recent studies have begun to apply direct brain stimulation to facilitate insight. In sum, the cognitive neuroscience of insight is an exciting new area of research with connections to fundamental neurocognitive processes.
We explore the cognitive effects of three common features of religious interac- tions: (1) demand for the expressive suppression of emotion; (2) exposure to goal- demoted and causally opaque actions; and (3) the presence of a charismatic authority. Using a cognitive resource model of executive function, we argue that these three features affect the executive system in ways that limit the capacity for individual processing of religious events. We frame our analysis in the context of a general assumption that collective rituals facilitate the transmission of cultural ideas. Building on recent experiments, we suggest that these three features increase participants’ susceptibility to authoritative narratives and interpretations by preventing individuals from constructing their own accounts of the ritual event.
While it is clear that many brain areas process mnemonic information, understanding how their interactions result in continuously adaptive behaviors has been a challenge. A homeostatic-regulated prediction model of memory is presented that considers the existence of a single memory system that is based on a multilevel coordinated and integrated network (from cells to neural systems) that determines the extent to which events and outcomes occur as predicted. The 'multiple memory systems of the brain' have in common output that signals errors in the prediction of events and/or their outcomes, although these signal differ in terms of what the error signal represents (e.g. hippocampus: context prediction errors vs midbrain/striatum: reward prediction errors). The prefrontal cortex likely plays a pivotal role in the coordination of prediction analysis within and across prediction brain areas. Due to its widespread control and influence, and intrinsic working memory mechanisms, the prefrontal cortex supports the flexible processing needed to generate adaptive behaviors and predict future outcomes. Prefrontal cortical regulation of prediction brain areas provides the control needed to continually and automatically produce adaptive responses according to homeostatic regulatory principles: prefrontal cortex serves as a controller that is intrinsically driven to maintain in prediction areas an experience-dependent firing rate set point that ensures adaptive temporally and spatially resolved neural responses to future prediction errors. This same drive by prefrontal cortex also restores set point firing rates after deviations (i.e. prediction errors) are detected. In this way, prefrontal cortex contributes to reducing uncertainty in prediction systems. An emergent outcome of our model is the flexible and adaptive control that prefrontal cortex is known to implement (i.e. working memory) in the most challenging of situations. Compromise to any of the prediction circuits should result in rigid and suboptimal decision making and memory as seen in addiction and neurological disease. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.2 (2003) 161-167
In this commentary, I consider Matthew's argument after making some general observations about dissociative identity disorder (DID). In contrast to Matthew's statement that "cases of DID, although not science fiction, are extraordinary" (p. 148), I believe that there are natural analogs of the disorder that, when considered, make it seem less puzzling and exotic. After discussing these examples, I examine the relations between social, cognitive, and neural processes supporting subjectivity and agency, to identify sources of personal identity in cases of DID that can be used as a basis for assessing Matthew's points against Behnke and Sinnott-Armstrong. I am not proposing a comprehensive theory, but rather identifying what I believe are components of such a theory. I then outline an approach to determining criminal responsibility in DID, drawing on analogies with other psychiatric disorders.
DID is a disorder described in DSM-IV, which "is characterised by the presence of two or more distinct identities or personality states that recurrently take control of the individual's behaviour accompanied by an inability to recall important personal information that is too extensive to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness" (American Psychiatric Association, p. 519).
How is personal identity recognized in normal cognition? If we take personhood to involve recognition of continuity of social, psychological, and physical identity for a given individual, then such judgments are routinely made rapidly and automatically as an aspect of what has come to be termed social cognition (Adolphs 2003). There is likely to be considerable redundancy in the types of information used to make judgments about whether a person is the same as one who was previously encountered, or perhaps heard about—for example, facial features, movement patterns, speech prosody, dress, speech content, gender, ethnicity, social role, among other features, all provide information about individual identity, and hence personhood. When uncertainty exists, it is likely to reflect a loss or alteration of cues that would ordinarily be used in a rapid, automatic, unexamined way (Adolphs 2003). In such extreme cases (for example, severe mental illness or disfigurement), the problem of identification becomes the subject of explicit reasoning (and hence of potential disagreement, because we then engage in post hoc rationalizations to establish criteria for determining personhood, whereas normally we rely on essentially automatic, implicit abilities that work in most circumstances, some of which make little use of linguistic representations and formal reasoning—for example, individual facial identity recognition, which may occur as quickly as 170 ms after stimulus onset [Adolphs 2003]). Nevertheless, examining our judgments and intuitions in cases that force us to explicitly consider whether personal identity is preserved may provide analogies and clues for how we should proceed with DID. Let us consider, then, some natural analogs of DID.
I suggest that method acting is an analog of DID (Manderino 1985). Method acting refers to an approach to acting training and performance in which emphasis is placed on intensely imagining and identifying with the mental life of the character being portrayed. Training courses and manuals list many techniques and practices that can be used to facilitate absorption in a role, drawing on different kinds of memory—for example, experiential memories, memories of others, general knowledge (semantic memory), and memories of sensations and feelings, to creative a vivid sense of the subjective experience and actions of the character. Manderino, a method acting teacher, comments:
This quotation suggests both that accomplished method actors are able to separate their habitual dispositions from a role, and that the method enactment of a role can be experienced as a...
Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality 5.2 (2005) 133-157
In an essay surveying the use of the term "spirituality," Sandra Schneiders writes that most scholars of religion these days use the term in an "anthropological sense," by which she means that "there is a growing consensus that Christian spirituality is a subset of a broader category that is neither confined to nor defined by Christianity nor even by religion." I write here as an anthropologist (my primary fields are psychiatry and religion), conscious that as I enter a conversation with scholars of Christian spirituality, there are thickets of learning which separate us and which neither of us can entirely see. I come to the table with an intellectual style and method out of the social sciences; scholars of spirituality bring centuries of engagement in debates I do not know. Yet I would like to hold the conversation, because I believe that I am puzzling over one of those features of spirituality not confined to Christianity nor even to religion, and I think that this feature may shed light on the way that many American Christians experience God—and I would like to hear how scholars of spirituality respond to what I have to say.
The puzzle begins with the shifts in the way certain psychiatric disorders are recognized over time. A humanistic skeptic might say: "But of course, definitions of psychiatric disorder always are changing, such vague categories inevitably shift their forms with the changing discourse of their times." In fact, that skeptical view is already well-entrenched in this case. The disorders which concern me are the ones called dissociative disorders, and what I find puzzling is that they disappear in America in the early decades of the twentieth century and reappear in that century's last few decades. There are already articulate (and often humanist) critics who suggest that the disorders are imagined by highly suggestible individuals whose complaints reveal more about their society than about their bodies. For them, the appearance and disappearance of the disorders is a cultural epiphenomenon which accompanies real social issues about the changing role of women in society. They write about the way that social metaphors and narratives become embodied in an individual's experience of illness. Much of what they say has the ring of truth.
The clinicians on the other side believe that dissociative disorders have the stark reality of cancer. They read what the critics have to say, and they have become more cautious about the specific claims that their patients make. But whereas many of the critics (and perhaps much of their intellectual readership) tend to dismiss the disorders entirely, these clinicians see the misery of their patients face-to-face, and they think that there is a real clinical phenomenon, that something is wrong with these bodies. Like the critics, the clinicians think about shifting social narratives—but for them, the issue becomes why certain symptoms were ignored or misinterpreted at certain times. They think that the gap in diagnosis arose because mid-century clinicians were blinded by the arrogance of psychoanalysts who interpreted incest as fantasy and by the new and capacious diagnosis of schizophrenia, introduced by Eugen Bleuler in 1908. They tend to think that the psychiatric symptoms generated out of childhood sexual abuse have always been the same.
In this essay I would like to offer another explanation, one that has not occurred (to my knowledge) to either side locked in the debate. I suggest that there is a psychological capacity called absorption, that this capacity is involved in psychiatric dissociative disorder but also in much spiritual experience, that it can be trained and elaborated, and that the cultural interest in the phenomena associated with the fruits of this capacity rises and falls over time. Social narratives, then, are central to my story, but they are central because they dictate when people become more or less interested in training this bodily capacity.
Let me begin with a richer description of these controversial diagnoses. In the last thirty to forty years, mental health professionals have identified patients with an array of symptoms...
We examined with functional magnetic resonance imaging the brain activity of 12 supernatural believers and 11 skeptics who
first imagined themselves in critical life situations (e.g. problems in intimate relationships) and then watched emotionally
charged pictures of lifeless objects and scenery (e.g. two red cherries bound together). Supernatural believers reported seeing
signs of how the situations were going to turn out in the pictures more often than skeptics did. Viewing the pictures activated
the same brain regions among all participants (e.g. the left inferior frontal gyrus, IFG). However, the right IFG, previously
associated with cognitive inhibition, was activated more strongly in skeptics than in supernatural believers, and its activation
was negatively correlated to sign seeing in both participant groups. We discuss the implications of these findings for research
on the universal processes that may underlie supernatural beliefs and the role of cognitive inhibition in explaining individual
differences in such beliefs.
Evidence from neuroimaging and electrophysiological studies indicates that the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) is a core region in emotional processing, particularly during down-regulation of negative emotional conditions. However, emotional regulation is a process subject to major inter-individual differences, some of which may be explained by personality traits. In the present study we used transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the left DLPFC to investigate whether transiently increasing the activity of this region resulted in changes in the ratings of positive, neutral and negative emotional pictures. Results revealed that anodal, but not cathodal, tDCS reduced the perceived degree of emotional valence for negative stimuli, possibly due to an enhancement of cognitive control of emotional expression. We also aimed to determine whether personality traits (extraversion and neuroticism) might condition the impact of tDCS. We found that individuals with higher scores on the introversion personality dimension were more permeable than extraverts to the modulatory effects of the stimulation. The present study underlines the role of the left DLPFC in emotional regulation, and stresses the importance of considering individual personality characteristics as a relevant variable, although replication is needed given the limited sample size of our study.
The study of those who have sustained traumatic brain injuries (TBI) during military conflicts has greatly facilitated research in the fields of neuropsychology, neurosurgery, psychiatry, neurology, and neuroimaging. The Vietnam Head Injury Study (VHIS) is a prospective, long-term follow-up study of a cohort of 1,221 Vietnam veterans with mostly penetrating brain injuries, which has stretched over more than 40 years. The scope of this study, both in terms of the types of injury and fields of examination, has been extremely broad. It has been instrumental in extending the field of TBI research and in exposing pressing medical and social issues that affect those who suffer such injuries. This review summarizes the history of conflict-related TBI research and the VHIS to date, as well as the vast range of important findings the VHIS has established.
Emotional stimuli, including facial expressions, are thought to gain rapid and privileged access to processing resources in the brain. Despite this access, we are conscious of only a fraction of the myriad of emotion-related cues we face everyday. It remains unclear, therefore, what the relationship is between activity in neural regions associated with emotional representation and the phenomenological experience of emotional awareness. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging and binocular rivalry to delineate the neural correlates of awareness of conflicting emotional expressions in humans. Behaviorally, fearful faces were significantly more likely to be perceived than disgusted or neutral faces. Functionally, increased activity was observed in regions associated with facial expression processing, including the amygdala and fusiform gyrus during emotional awareness. In contrast, awareness of neutral faces and suppression of fearful faces were associated with increased activity in dorsolateral prefrontal and inferior parietal cortices. The amygdala showed increased functional connectivity with ventral visual system regions during fear awareness and increased connectivity with perigenual prefrontal cortex (pgPFC; Brodmann's area 32/10) when fear was suppressed. Despite being prioritized for awareness, emotional items were associated with reduced activity in areas considered critical for consciousness. Contributions to consciousness from bottom-up and top-down neural regions may be additive, such that increased activity in specialized regions within the extended ventral visual system may reduce demands on a frontoparietal system important for awareness. The possibility is raised that interactions between pgPFC and the amygdala, previously implicated in extinction, may also influence whether or not an emotional stimulus is accessible to consciousness.
This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate how assumptions about speakers’ abilities changed the
evoked BOLD response in secular and Christian participants who received intercessory prayer. We find that recipients’ assumptions
about senders’ charismatic abilities have important effects on their executive network. Most notably, the Christian participants
deactivated the frontal network consisting of the medial and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex bilaterally in response to
speakers who they believed had healing abilities. An independent analysis across subjects revealed that this deactivation
predicted the Christian participants’ subsequent ratings of the speakers’ charisma and experience of God’s presence during
prayer. These observations point to an important mechanism of authority that may facilitate charismatic influence, a mechanism
which is likely to be present in other interpersonal interactions as well.
We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate how performing formalized and improvised forms of praying
changed the evoked BOLD response in a group of Danish Christians. Distinct from formalized praying and secular controls, improvised
praying activated a strong response in the temporopolar region, the medial prefrontal cortex, the temporo-parietal junction
and precuneus. This finding supports our hypothesis that religious subjects, who consider their God to be ‘real’ and capable
of reciprocating requests, recruit areas of social cognition when they pray. We argue that praying to God is an intersubjective
experience comparable to ‘normal’ interpersonal interaction.
Many of the links of religiousness with health, well-being, and social behavior may be due to religion's influences on self-control or self-regulation. Using Carver and Scheier's (1998) theory of self-regulation as a framework for organizing the empirical research, the authors review evidence relevant to 6 propositions: (a) that religion can promote self-control; (b) that religion influences how goals are selected, pursued, and organized; (c) that religion facilitates self-monitoring; (d) that religion fosters the development of self-regulatory strength; (e) that religion prescribes and fosters proficiency in a suite of self-regulatory behaviors; and (f) that some of religion's influences on health, well-being, and social behavior may result from religion's influences on self-control and self-regulation. The authors conclude with suggestions for future research.
Successful control of affect partly depends on the capacity to modulate negative emotional responses through the use of cognitive
strategies (i.e., reappraisal). Recent studies suggest the involvement of frontal cortical regions in the modulation of amygdala
reactivity and the mediation of effective emotion regulation. However, within-subject inter-regional connectivity between
amygdala and prefrontal cortex in the context of affect regulation is unknown. Here, using psychophysiological interaction
analyses of functional magnetic resonance imaging data, we show that activity in specific areas of the frontal cortex (dorsolateral,
dorsal medial, anterior cingulate, orbital) covaries with amygdala activity and that this functional connectivity is dependent
on the reappraisal task. Moreover, strength of amygdala coupling with orbitofrontal cortex and dorsal medial prefrontal cortex
predicts the extent of attenuation of negative affect following reappraisal. These findings highlight the importance of functional
connectivity within limbic-frontal circuitry during emotion regulation.
The Mississippi Scale for Combat-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder is a 35-item self-report scale derived from Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders criteria for the disorder. This article describes a series of three studies designed to explore the psychometric properties of the scale. Study 1 used 362 Vietnam veterans seeking help at Vet Centers (Operation Outreach) to confirm the internal consistency of the instrument and provide an assessment of its factor structure. Study 2 demonstrated the high test—retest reliability of the instrument over a period of 1 week. Study 3 indicated that the test’s sensitivity was .93, specificity was .89, and overall hit rate was .90 when it was used to differentiate between a posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) group and two non-PTSD comparison groups. The utility of the test when it is administered within the context of a multiaxial approach to assess military-related PTSD is discussed.
The extent to which intellectual processes are preserved as a function of preinjury 'intelligence' and of size and location of the brain lesions was evaluated in Vietnam war veterans who survived penetrating missile wounds. With regard to an overall postinjury intelligence test score, preinjury intelligence was most predictive, size of lesion was next most predictive and lesion location was least important. For subtest scores from the same intelligence test, lesion location assumed much greater predictive value. Specifically, left temporal and occipital lesions impaired performance on subtests assessing vocabulary and object-function matching ability.
This book is started with the main question, how come some people in the USA believe in an invisible being, that is God. How has belief in God come to influence people’s lives? How has God come to be really present in human life? Almost 100 percent people in the US, believe in God according to a Gallup Poll (Luhrmann, 2012: xi). In addition, religious enthusiasm for American has grown increasingly rapidly. Throughout the 20th century, American churches and congregations have developed remarkably (Luhrmann, 14). Even Luhrmann gives an example about the paradoxical things. Many people thought that the hippie vision would bring radical revolutionaries movement that threated the right wing. As a contrary, Christian Hippies play significant roles in making religion to be able publicly accepted (even though there were on drugs) (Luhrmann 16-17)
What is the value of religious and spiritual experiences within human life? Are we evolutionarily programmed to have such experiences? How will emerging technologies change such experiences in the future? Wesley Wildman addresses these key intellectual questions and more, offering a spiritually evocative naturalist interpretation of the diverse variety of religious and spiritual experiences. He describes these experiences, from the common to the exceptional, and offers innovative classifications for them based on their neurological features and internal qualities. His account avoids reductionalistic oversimplifications and instead synthesizes perspectives from many disciplines, including philosophy and natural sciences, into a compelling account of the meaning and value of religious and spiritual experiences in human life. The resulting interpretation does not assume a supernatural worldview nor does it reject such experiences as positive affirmation of this-worldly existence.
We review evidence for partially segregated networks of brain areas that carry out different attentional functions. One system, which includes parts of the intraparietal cortex and superior frontal cortex, is involved in preparing and applying goal-directed (top-down) selection for stimuli and responses. This system is also modulated by the detection of stimuli. The other system, which includes the temporoparietal cortex and inferior frontal cortex, and is largely lateralized to the right hemisphere, is not involved in top-down selection. Instead, this system is specialized for the detection of behaviourally relevant stimuli, particularly when they are salient or unexpected. This ventral frontoparietal network works as a 'circuit breaker' for the dorsal system, directing attention to salient events. Both attentional systems interact during normal vision, and both are disrupted in unilateral spatial neglect.
From a pool of approximately 400 persons, 20 extreme intrinsic and 20 extreme extrinsic persons took part in a sensory isolation experiment in which varieties of reported imagery were the dependent variables. Participants spent one hour in a sensory isolation tank under either a cartoon imagery set or a religious imagery set condition. Three non-relevant set variables (light, geometric forms, meaningful figures) were also assessed as dependent variables. As predicted, multivariate analysis of variance indicated a significant effect for both set and religious type. Univariate analyses for religious imagery showed effects for both set and religious type, while for cartoon imagery, only set was significant. In a second study to assess possible demand characteristics in the isolation experiment, 65 intrinsic persons and 54 extrinsic persons associated to standard Rorschach cards under either cartoon, religious or no set conditions. Subjects' responses were classified as religious, cartoon, or neutral. Results of nonparametric statistical tests indicated that, as predicted, within all the set conditions, there was no statistical difference between the number of responses given by the religious types across any of the response categories.
A measure of reported mystical experience is presented. This "Mysticism Scale, Research Form D (M scale)," has 32 items, four for each of 8 categories of mysticism initially conceptualized by Stace (1960). Items on this scale are both positively and negatively expressed to avoid problems of response set. A factor analysis of the M Scale indicated two major factors, a general mystical experience factor (20 items) and a religious interpretation factor (12 items). Preliminary evidence indicates that those high on the M Scale have more intrinsic religious motivation as defined by Hoge's (1972) scale, are more open to experience as defined by Taft's (1970) ego permissiveness scale, have more intense religious experience as defined by Hood's (1970) scale, and have moderately higher scores on the L, Hs, and Hy scales of the MMPI.
Abstract There are now numerous observations of subtle right hemisphere (RH) contributions to language comprehension. It has been suggested that these contributions reflect coarse semantic coding in the RH. That is, the RH weakly activates large semantic fields-including concepts distantly related to the input word-whereas the left hemisphere (LH) strongly activates small semantic fields-limited to concepts closely related to the input (Beeman, 1993a,b). This makes the RH less effective at interpreting single words, but more sensitive to semantic overlap of multiple words. To test this theory, subjects read target words preceded by either "Summation" primes (three words each weakly related to the target) or Unrelated primes (three unrelated words), and target exposure duration was manipulated so that subjects correctly named about half the target words in each hemifield. In Experiment 1, subjects benefited more from Summation primes when naming target words presented to the left visual field-RH (Ivf-RH) than when naming target words presented to the right visual field-LH (rvf-LH), suggesting a RH advantage in coarse semantic coding. In Experiment 2, with a low proportion of related prime-target trials, subjects benefited more from "Direct" primes (one strong associate flanked by two unrelated words) than from Summation primes for rvf-LH target words, indicating that the LH activates closely related information much more strongly than distantly related information. Subjects benefited equally from both prime types for Ivf-RH target words, indicating that the RH activates closely related information only slightly more strongly, at best, than distantly related information. This suggests that the RH processes words with relatively coarser coding than the LH, a conclusion consistent with a recent suggestion that the RH coarsely codes visual input (Kosslyn, Chabris, Mar-solek, & Koenig, 1992).
This paper first considers the current confusion in categorizing and even describing mystical states, including experiences of God, the Void, and lesser religious experiences. The paper presents the necessity of studying the neuropsychological substrate of such experiences both to understand them in greater depth and to help resolve scholarly confusion in this area. As a prelude to presenting a neuropsychological model, the basic principles of brain organization are reviewed, including hemispheri-city; primary, secondary, and tertiary sensory receptive areas; their motor analogues; prefrontosensorial polarity; and the integration of limbic functioning into cortical activity. A neuropsychological model for mystical states is then presented in terms of differential stimulation and deafferentation of various tertiary sensory association areas, along with integration of various patterns of limbic stimulation.
The sections in this article are:
Recent research on the evolution of religion has alternatively viewed religion as a by-product of evolved human mental modules and as a costly signal for social communication. This paper considers religion in relation to five recurrent traits: communal ritual, separation of the sacred and the profane, significance of adolescence in the transmission of religious beliefs, incorporation of counterintuitive concepts, and the presence of supernatural agents. These co-occurring traits are viewed as an adaptive complex that offers clues to the evolution of religion from its non-human ritual roots. We propose that the critical element differentiating religious from non-human ritual is the use of ritual to conditionally associate emotion and abstract symbols. Neurophysiological mechanisms underlying such associations are proposed and the brain plasticity of human adolescence is identified as an "experience expectant" developmental period for ritual conditioning of sacred symbols. We suggest that such symbols evolved to solve an ecological problem by extending communication and coordination of social relations across space and time.
This paper considers religion in relation to four recurrent traits: belief systems incorporating supernatural agents and counterintuitive
concepts, communal ritual, separation of the sacred and the profane, and adolescence as a preferred developmental period for
religious transmission. These co-occurring traits are viewed as an adaptive complex that offers clues to the evolution of
religion from its nonhuman ritual roots. We consider the critical element differentiating religious from non-human ritual
to be the conditioned association of emotion and abstract symbols. We propose neurophysiological mechanisms underlying such
associations and argue that the brain plasticity of human adolescence constitutes an “experience expectant” developmental
period for ritual conditioning of sacred symbols. We suggest that such symbols evolved to solve an ecological problem by extending
communication and coordination of social relations across time and space.
The ‘religiosity’ of the epileptic has been recognized since the time of Esquirol (1838) and Morel (1860). These, and later French workers (including Marchand and Ajuriaguerra, 1948), have sought to explain the epileptic's religiosity as being the result of his disability, social isolation and his enhanced need for the consolation of religion. A specific conversion experience after a fit was reported by Howden (1872–73). The patient believed that he was in Heaven. He would appear to have been depersonalized, as it took three days for his body to be reunited with his soul. ‘He maintained that God had sent it to him as a means of conversion, that he was now a new man, and had never before known what true peace was…. He assured me that he was a converted man and that he was convinced he would have no more fits.’ Howden also reported on John Engellerecht who, after many years of depression, attempted suicide and appeared to die. After visiting Hell and Heaven, he cast off his depression, and acquired a state of religious ecstasy accompanied by visual and auditory hallucinations. Boven (1919) mentions a 14-year-old boy who after a seizure ‘saw the good God and the angels, and heard a celestial fanfare of music’. He regards the religiosity of the epileptic character as being due to experiences acquired in the course of an epileptic aura and in the subsequent confusional state. Eventually the patient becomes preoccupied with a cure which he believes depends entirely on God, and this belief is the basis of his euphoria. Boven stresses the intensified piety of the epileptic after a severe seizure.
The predisposition of human beings toward spiritual feeling, thinking, and behaviors is measured by a supposedly stable personality trait called self-transcendence. Although a few neuroimaging studies suggest that neural activation of a large fronto-parieto-temporal network may underpin a variety of spiritual experiences, information on the causative link between such a network and spirituality is lacking. Combining pre- and post-neurosurgery personality assessment with advanced brain-lesion mapping techniques, we found that selective damage to left and right inferior posterior parietal regions induced a specific increase of self-transcendence. Therefore, modifications of neural activity in temporoparietal areas may induce unusually fast modulations of a stable personality trait related to transcendental self-referential awareness. These results hint at the active, crucial role of left and right parietal systems in determining self-transcendence and cast new light on the neurobiological bases of altered spiritual and religious attitudes and behaviors in neurological and mental disorders.
Intuitive predictions and judgments under conditions of uncertainty are often mediated by judgment heuristics that sometimes lead to biases. Using the classical conjunction bias example, the present study examines the relationship between receptivity to metacognitive executive training and emotion-based learning ability indexed by Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) performance. After completing a computerised version of the IGT, participants were trained to avoid conjunction bias on a frequency judgment task derived from the works of Tversky and Kahneman. Pre- and post-test performances were assessed via another probability judgment task. Results clearly showed that participants who produced a biased answer despite the experimental training (individual patterns of the biased --> biased type) mainly had less emotion-based learning ability in IGT. Better emotion-based learning ability was observed in participants whose response pattern was biased --> logical. These findings argue in favour of the capacity of the human mind/brain to overcome reasoning bias when trained under executive programming conditions and as a function of emotional warning sensitivity.
Men who sustained penetrating head injuries resulting in nonfluent aphasia within six months following injury, were examined fifteen years later and classified into two groups, 13 with persistent nonfluent aphasia, and 26 without symptoms of aphasia. Relative to a normal control group on a comprehensive battery of speech and language tests, the chronic nonfluent aphasies demonstrated syntactic processing deficits in all language modalities, with only mild or no impairment in other language faculties. The recovered group demonstrated deficits only in written expressive syntax.
The CT lesions of the two groups differed in the extent of left hemisphere lesion volume and the degree of posterior and deep lesion extension within the left hemisphere. The nonrecovered group did not have greater right hemisphere damage. Broca's area was equally involved in 77 per cent of patients in both groups All patients in the nonrecovered group had posterior extension of their lesions in Wernicke's area with some involvement of the underlying white matter and basal ganglia in the left hemisph
Clinical observations of patients with ventral frontal and anterior temporal cortical lesions reveal marked abnormalities in social attitudes. A previous study in seven patients with ventral prefrontal lesions provided the first direct experimental evidence for abnormalities in social attitudes using a well-established measure of gender stereotypes, the Implicit Association Test (IAT). Here, we were able to test whether these first findings could be reproduced in a larger sample of 154 patients with penetrating head injuries, and to determine the differential effects of ventromedial prefrontal (vmPFC) and ventrolateral prefrontal (vlPFC) cortical lesions on IAT performance. In addition, we investigated the role of the superior anterior temporal lobe (aTL), recently shown to represent conceptual social knowledge. First, we used a linear regression model to identify the role of each of the three regions, while controlling for the extent of damage to other regions. We found that larger lesions in either the vmPFC or the superior aTL were associated with increased stereotypical attitudes, whereas larger lesions in the vlPFC were associated with decreased stereotypical attitudes. Second, in a confirmatory analysis, we grouped patients by lesion location and compared their performance on the IAT with that of healthy volunteers. Compared to controls, patients with lesions in either the vmPFC or the superior aTL showed increased stereotypical attitudes, whereas patients with lesions in the vlPFC showed decreased stereotypical attitudes. The functional contributions of these regions in social attitudes are discussed.
Many people derive peace of mind and purpose in life from their belief in God. For others, however, religion provides unsatisfying answers. Are there brain differences between believers and nonbelievers? Here we show that religious conviction is marked by reduced reactivity in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a cortical system that is involved in the experience of anxiety and is important for self-regulation. In two studies, we recorded electroencephalographic neural reactivity in the ACC as participants completed a Stroop task. Results showed that stronger religious zeal and greater belief in God were associated with less firing of the ACC in response to error and with commission of fewer errors. These correlations remained strong even after we controlled for personality and cognitive ability. These results suggest that religious conviction provides a framework for understanding and acting within one's environment, thereby acting as a buffer against anxiety and minimizing the experience of error.
The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) assesses a wide range of cognitive abilities and impairments. Factor analyses have documented four underlying indices that jointly comprise intelligence as assessed with the WAIS: verbal comprehension (VCI), perceptual organization (POI), working memory (WMI), and processing speed (PSI). We used nonparametric voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping in 241 patients with focal brain damage to investigate their neural underpinnings. Statistically significant lesion-deficit relationships were found in left inferior frontal cortex for VCI, in left frontal and parietal cortex for WMI, and in right parietal cortex for POI. There was no reliable single localization for PSI. Statistical power maps and cross-validation analyses quantified specificity and sensitivity of the index scores in predicting lesion locations. Our findings provide comprehensive lesion maps of intelligence factors, and make specific recommendations for interpretation and application of the WAIS to the study of intelligence in health and disease.
We propose an integrative cognitive neuroscience framework for understanding the cognitive and neural foundations of religious belief. Our analysis reveals 3 psychological dimensions of religious belief (God's perceived level of involvement, God's perceived emotion, and doctrinal/experiential religious knowledge), which functional MRI localizes within networks processing Theory of Mind regarding intent and emotion, abstract semantics, and imagery. Our results are unique in demonstrating that specific components of religious belief are mediated by well-known brain networks, and support contemporary psychological theories that ground religious belief within evolutionary adaptive cognitive functions.
Previous neuroimaging studies of working memory (WM) in schizophrenia have generated conflicting findings of hypo- and hyper-frontality, discrepancies potentially driven by differences in task difficulty and/or performance. This study proposes and tests a new model of the performance-activation relationship in schizophrenia by combining changes by load with overall individual differences in performance. Fourteen patients with recent-onset schizophrenia and eighteen controls underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while performing a parametric verbal WM task. Group level differences followed a linear "cross-over" pattern, such that in controls, activation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) increased as performance decreased, while patients showed the opposite. Overall, low performing patients were hypoactive and high performing patients hyperactive relative to controls. However, patients and controls showed similar functions of activation by load in which activation rises with task difficulty but levels off or slightly decreases at higher loads. Moreover, across all loads and at their own WM capacity, higher performing patients showed greater DLPFC activation than controls, while lower performing patients activated least. This study establishes a novel framework for predicting the relationship between functional activation and WM performance by combining changes of activation by WM load occurring within each subject with the overall differences in activation associated with general WM performance. Essentially, increasing task difficulty correlates asymptotically with increasing activation in all subjects, but depending on their behavioral performance, patients show overall hyper- versus hypofrontality, a pattern potentially derived from individual differences in underlying cellular changes that may relate to levels of functional disability.
The presence of delusions, a significant feature of many schizophrenic patients, implies a disturbance of reality testing.
Through descriptions of a number of organic delusion syndromes featuring frontal damage, and a theory of prefrontal functions,
a correlation of schizophrenic delusions and prefrontal malfunction is postulated.