God helmet experiment reconsidered : Uncertainty, cultural learning, and the feeling of presence
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216224%3A14210%2F25%3A00142030" target="_blank" >RIV/00216224:14210/25:00142030 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="https://iahr2025.org/" target="_blank" >https://iahr2025.org/</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
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Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
God helmet experiment reconsidered : Uncertainty, cultural learning, and the feeling of presence
Original language description
How do cultural learning, uncertainty, and authority influence our experiences? In recent decades, neurologists experimented with the “God helmet”, i.e., a device supposedly inducing religious experiences through a weak electromagnetic field. However, later replications showed that the helmet works even as a sham model. Thus, in the experimental study, we plan to use the sham God helmet to raise our participants’ expectations about having a religious experience in the lab. Within the predictive processing framework, we will prime participants to feel the presence of an aspiritual entity related to Polish Catholicism. Using a within-subject design and participant sample with varying degrees of religious training, we will manipulate their uncertainty via sensory deprivation and observe its influence on their ability to achieve the suggested feeling of presence. In the talk, I will present our preregistered experimental design with preliminary data and discuss possible implications of future results towards the understanding of how institutional authority, previous cultural learning, and uncertainty are influencing the nature of subjectively felt experiences and how such influences may contribute to changes in individual attitudes in the context of broader society.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Classification
Type
O - Miscellaneous
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
60304 - Religious studies
Result continuities
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)
Others
Publication year
2025
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů