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Perceptual Biases in Relation to Paranormal and Conspiracy Beliefs

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  • Michiel van Elk

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that one’s prior beliefs have a strong effect on perceptual decision-making and attentional processing. The present study extends these findings by investigating how individual differences in paranormal and conspiracy beliefs are related to perceptual and attentional biases. Two field studies were conducted in which visitors of a paranormal conducted a perceptual decision making task (i.e. the face / house categorization task; Experiment 1) or a visual attention task (i.e. the global / local processing task; Experiment 2). In the first experiment it was found that skeptics compared to believers more often incorrectly categorized ambiguous face stimuli as representing a house, indicating that disbelief rather than belief in the paranormal is driving the bias observed for the categorization of ambiguous stimuli. In the second experiment, it was found that skeptics showed a classical ‘global-to-local’ interference effect, whereas believers in conspiracy theories were characterized by a stronger ‘local-to-global interference effect’. The present study shows that individual differences in paranormal and conspiracy beliefs are associated with perceptual and attentional biases, thereby extending the growing body of work in this field indicating effects of cultural learning on basic perceptual processes.

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  • Michiel van Elk, 2015. "Perceptual Biases in Relation to Paranormal and Conspiracy Beliefs," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(6), pages 1-15, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0130422
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0130422
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    1. H. R. Heekeren & S. Marrett & P. A. Bandettini & L. G. Ungerleider, 2004. "A general mechanism for perceptual decision-making in the human brain," Nature, Nature, vol. 431(7010), pages 859-862, October.
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    Cited by:

    1. Ferreira, Simão & Campos, Carlos & Marinho, Beatriz & Rocha, Susana & Fonseca-Pedrero, Eduardo & Barbosa Rocha, Nuno, 2022. "What drives beliefs in COVID-19 conspiracy theories? The role of psychotic-like experiences and confinement-related factors," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 292(C).
    2. Adrian Furnham & Simmy Grover, 2022. "Do you have to be mad to believe in conspiracy theories? Personality disorders and conspiracy theories," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 68(7), pages 1454-1461, November.
    3. repec:cup:judgdm:v:15:y:2020:i:4:p:572-585 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Fernando Blanco & Maria Manuela Moreno-Fernández & Helena Matute, 2020. "Are the symptoms really remitting? How the subjective interpretation of outcomes can produce an illusion of causality," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 15(4), pages 572-585, July.
    5. David Leiser & Nofar Duani & Pascal Wagner-Egger, 2017. "The conspiratorial style in lay economic thinking," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(3), pages 1-17, March.

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