Journal Article : Paranormal And Religious Believers

Singer and Benassi (1981) described a positive correlation between environmental uncertainty in western countries and occult beliefs. Although it could be argued that they may be overreaching with this generalization which is not supported with data, there is truth to this correlation. Humans try to be rational, and logical, and think critically, but in uncertain situations, we look to our environment, the physical and social environment, to provide us with information. Therefore, superstitions and supernatural phenomenon seem possible if no logical explanation can be given, and if the feedback from the environment reinforces what could be occult beliefs. French, Haque, Bunton-Stasyshyn, & Davis (2009) conducted an experiment attempting to investigate whether they could try to create a “haunted” room, and if participants would experience more abnormal sensations. Participants were informed they may feel some abnormal sensations prior to entering the room. Majority of participants reported having three or more abnormal sensations in the 50-minute period they were in the room. These sensations can be a result of susceptibility, but the uncertainty of that environment, and the lack of information may create these sensations and can validate occult

Psychic staring is considered a paranormal behavior. This phenomenon is studied alongside with its findings to confirm if it is real. Ideally a human being has five senses whereby that of sensing if someone is staring at you is not

In everyday life, people are faced with thought provoking questions regarding the legitimacy of their observations. For some, it can be mind blowing metaphysical questions, for example, is what people observe actually present and real. Then for others, it can be minor issues like whether or not a certain person is who they say they are or if their appearance matches their personality. Nonetheless, appearances can be deceiving. Often time creating illegitimate realities that can influence people’s decisions and perception.

Imagine lacking the ability to recognize the familiar face of a loved one or spouse. Or having to rely on voices, clothing, and certain attributes of that individual in order to have some kind of knowledge on who they actually are. This condition is defined as Prosopagnosia; known as face blindness or facial agnostic. According to Barton (2008), it was first described as a consequence of cerebral damage by Quaking and Bordello in 1867. This term comes from the Greek word “face” and “lack of knowledge.” Stated by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (2007), Prosopagnosia is anticipated to be the result of damages, abnormalities, or destruction in the right fusiform gyrus; part of the brain that controls the perception of faces and the functionality of memory in the neural system. This deficit can be present from birth, the result of a stroke, a traumatic brain injury, or neurodegenerative diseases. In order to help an individual with Prosopagnosia, it is essential to develop compensatory or redeeming strategies, as well as the use of clues or attributes to help them better identify individuals.

The authors of this paper are interested in the psychological basis of the behavioural avoidance of people with facial disfigurement. Specifically, they are interested in how people respond to individuals with facial birth marks.

Have you been feeling drab lately? Do you look at others who are happier and more successful than you and feel like a failure? The problem is that you're ignoring engrams accumulated in past lives. Unwanted emotions and memories of trauma accumulate in the reactive mind, leading to anxieties and mental illnesses. There's no reason to feel ashamed because you are not the only starving sailor in this boat. That strip of land you see in the distance, that glimmer of hope to get you going is... The Church of Scientology.

Social cognition depends first and far most on information and accurate information is needed to understand a person. Sometimes we have very little information to base our judgment on, yet that does not stop us from making further intuitions about other people or situations. Psychologist, Janine Willis and Alex Todorov, have demonstrated this fact through a Face perception research or snap judgments study— (Gilovich et al, 2012). In this study, participants were shown a variety of faces and their task was to rate how attractive, aggressive, liable, trustworthy, and competent each person seemed. The results displayed that people are more likely approach those they perceive as trustworthy and not aggressive and less likely to approach that they anticipant as untrustworthy and aggressive (Gilovich et al, 2012). In the case of racism, the heated relationship between the white policemen and black community is related to the first impression of each party that created stereotypes based on their

For this unit’s learning journal, I picked an article from the BBC called “Psychology: The Truth About the Paranormal” by David Robson. In his article, Robson tries to analyze why so many people believe in the paranormal from a psychological point of view. According to the article, “believers may have weaker cognitive ‘inhibition’, compared to skeptics” (Robson, 2004, par. 11). Robson also explores the possibility that belief in the supernatural may be a self-defense mechanism created by the brain, “belief in the paranormal can be a kind of shield from the even harsher truths of the world.” (Robson, 2004, par. 7)

Over many years, people have been inquisitive about abnormal behaviours within their societies and beyond. A typical question pertaining to these behaviours is, “why is he behaving this way.” According to DSM-IV-TR, abnormal behaviour is defined as a person who experiences behavioural, cognitive or emotional dysfunction, associated with distress and atypical in his cultural context (Barlow, Durand, 2009). However, the quest for answers and remedies has drifted people from scientific models to traditional ones. One of such models is supernatural.

The Face on Mars was a popular discussion developed in 2001 by a Viking Spacecraft photography. March 24th of 2001, a NASA spacecraft was in the action of capturing pictures in space when the scientist noticed something peculiar in the photographs. There was what is believed to be a human face imprinted in the Cydonia region of Mars. Many pictures were taken before the year of 2001, however, the impression changed over time. Few scientist believe that the face is just an alien artifact. The very first images taken, scientist believe that the lighting, angles and distance had an affect on the pictures taken. Their beliefs rely on the fact that the more recent photos do not resemble the most famous images. Pareidolia is an intellectual phenomenon

This essay will talk about face recognition and several reasons why it has been studied separately. The ability to recognise faces is of huge significance of people’s daily life and differs in important ways from other forms of object recognition (Bruce and Young, 1986). Than this essay will talk about the processes involved in face recognition which comes from the diversity of research about familiar and unfamiliar faces-it includes behavioural studies, studies on brain-damaged patients, and neuroimaging studies. Finally, it will discuss how face recognition differs from the recognition of other object by involving more holistic or configuration processing and different areas of the brain (Eysenck & Keane, 2005).

Prosopagnosia is defined as the difficulty in recognizing an individuals face; it is broken down into 3 main types; Apperceptive prosopagnosia, associative prosopagnosia and developmental prosopagnosia. Perception is an important aspect when recognizing faces, without recognizing the stimulus (face) you would not be able to identify a person. Therefore the individuals who sufferer from this disorder is unable to accurately recognize a face whether that be the face of a familiar person such as a family member or close friend, the face of a famous person, or even their own face. This paper will look at prosopagnosia in greater detail, it will explain the 3 main types, as well as give insight as to why face recognition is important in our

A ghost, according to the article “History of Ghosts” on History.com, is a person's spirit once it has separated itself from the body after death. Also known as specters, ghosts continue existing even after the heart stops and the corpse is cold, and they fall under the category of paranormal phenomena. When something is considered paranormal, it simply means that science has no explanation for it. So if science can't explain it, it can't be real, right? Not necessarily. It just means that it hasn't been proven a fact, it's all in theory. But Jack Porter makes a valid point in his article, “The Study of Paranormal Phenomenon is a Legitimate Science”, when he says, “It is important to remember the Big Bang is a theory, but that is still

In this essay descriptions as well as identifications of research evidence for both Bruce and Young’s 1986 cognitive model of face recognition and Burton, Bruce and Johnston’s 1990 cognitive model of face recognition; which are then applied to two separate case studies and an explanation of which better suits each shall be given. For the purposes of this essay, Bruce and Young’s 1986 model shall be theory 1, and Burton, Bruce and Johnston’s 1990 model, shall be theory 2.

Although some critiques can be made, the experiment overall was well structured and the scientists was able to gather good evidence. The authors agreed that the mechanism that is associated with the implicit recognition is different from the recognition awareness. The scientists had the participants take a forced-choice test for a second time after they had looked at the kaleidoscope images. By doing another experiment using the same technique, they are giving a variety of stimiulus that could reaffirm the correlation that they are trying to make.