Prof Chris French - Research projects

Cognitive biases underlying paranormal belief and experience

Ever since records began, in every known society, a substantial proportion of the population has reported unusual experiences many of which we would today label as “paranormal”. Opinion polls show that the majority of the general public accepts that paranormal phenomena do occur. The wider scientific community, however, generally rejects such claims. If, in fact, paranormal forces do not exist, then psychologists need to produce and test alternative explanations for such high levels of paranormal belief and reports of ostensibly paranormal experiences. One fruitful approach has been to consider the possible role of known cognitive biases that might lead individuals to believe that they have had a paranormal experience when in fact they have not. Such biases affect many cognitive processes including perception, memory, judgement, reasoning, and so on, and in principle are relevant to understanding a wide range of ostensibly paranormal phenomena.

Inattentional blindness, absorption and paranormal belief/experience

Recent (as yet unpublished) findings from our research have shown that people with a susceptibility towards inattentional blindness score higher on pencil and paper measures of absorption. Absorption is a personality measure that refers to the degree to which an individual becomes absorbed in a task (e.g., reading a book, watching a film, doing a puzzle) to the extent that they effectively ‘shut out’ the outside world. Absorption is also correlated with paranormal belief/experience and our research shows that the inattentionally blind score higher than the non-inattentionally blind on measures of paranormal belief/experience. An important underlying factor appears to be differences between the two groups in terms of working memory capacity. Proposals aimed at further investigation of the relationships between these and associated variables would be welcomed.

Causes and interpretations of sleep paralysis

Sleep paralysis (SP) is a very common but nonetheless frightening experience when, in a state somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, you realise that you cannot move. In fact, the muscles of the body are always paralysed during rapid eye-movement (REM) sleep, the stage of sleep associated with dreaming. Presumably this prevents the dreamer from actually carrying out the actions of the dream. It is only rarely that one becomes consciously aware of this state of paralysis, but around 40% of our first-year students report having experienced it at least once. It is transitory and harmless but can leave the sufferer shaken and perplexed. As if that is not frightening enough, it is often associated with a strong sense of presence and hallucinations of a visual, auditory and/or tactile nature. These hallucinations include the sight of people, strange creatures or moving lights;  the sounds of voices, footsteps or mechanical sounds; and feelings of being touched or dragged, or of one’s body vibrating. Difficulty breathing and an intense sense of fear are also commonly reported. Around 5% of the population report having experienced this more florid version of SP. Any proposals aimed at furthering our understanding of this intriguing phenomenon would be welcome.

Susceptibility to false memories and paranormal belief

Many of the variables that correlate with susceptibility to false memories also appear to correlate with paranormal belief and the tendency to report ostensibly paranormal experiences raising the possibility that some reports of paranormal experiences may, in fact, be based upon false memories. Previous research by members of the APRU has produced evidence directly supporting such a possibility and proposals for further investigations of this hypothesis would be welcome.

The psychology of scepticism

Anomalistic psychologists have mainly focused their efforts on attempting to explain why people have paranormal beliefs but a case can be made that the psychology of scepticism is also worthy of study. If it is the case, as many believe, that evolutionary pressures have resulted in human beings possessing minds with a natural predisposition to believe in the supernatural, the question naturally arises as to why a substantial minority of the population reject such beliefs. Projects in this area would potentially address a range of interesting questions. Are their different sub-groups of ‘sceptics’? Do sceptics show similar cognitive biases to believers, albeit in the opposite direction? What environmental influences are important in determining levels of belief?