Religious Experiences In The Lab? Uncertainty, Cultural Learning, And Feelings Of Presence

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216224%3A14210%2F25%3A00142029" target="_blank" >RIV/00216224:14210/25:00142029 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://assc2025.gr/" target="_blank" >https://assc2025.gr/</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

—

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Religious Experiences In The Lab? Uncertainty, Cultural Learning, And Feelings Of Presence

Original language description

Across cultures and times, people report experiences of contact with religious, spiritual, or other special beings. While spirits or gods could be understood as products of human narrativity, recent research based on neurocomputational predictive processing theory shows that feelings of presence (FoP) of special beings can be experimentally induced in the lab. However, what specific factors are influencing such subjectively real experiences? In designing this registered report, we plan to test the following factors: sensory uncertainty (i.e., sensory deprivation), cultural learning (Catholic Christianity, providing prior expectations potentially overriding the actual sensory experience), and suggestive stimulus (“God helmet” - a sham device allegedly inducing FoPs by manipulating brain’s electromagnetic field). We plan to sample 119 participants for a medium effect size (f2 = 0.15). We will use within-subject experimental design for manipulating sensory deprivation under the stable God helmet condition; participants will be recruited from three types of population - formally religious, religious with practice unrelated to feelings of presence, and religious practicing specifically sensed presence feelings. We expect that under a sham God helmet: participants trained in religious FoP practices will experience more FoPs; participants will experience more FoPs under sensory deprivation than without (incl. interaction with religious practice); participants trained in FoP-oriented practice will report more intense FoPs. Examining the effects of uncertainty, cultural learning, and suggestive context on differences in subjective sensory experience can have a wide cross-disciplinary impact. Thus, we would be happy to hear comments and critiques of our design.

Czech name

—

Czech description

—

Type

O - Miscellaneous

CEP classification

—

OECD FORD branch

60304 - Religious studies

Project

<a href="/en/project/EH22_008%2F0004595" target="_blank" >EH22_008/0004595: Beyond Security: Role of Conflict in Resilience-Building</a><br>

Continuities

P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)

Publication year

2025

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů