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    Inattentional blindness, absorption, working memory capacity, and paranormal belief

    Richards, Anne and Gunnarsson Hellgren, M. and French, C.C. (2014) Inattentional blindness, absorption, working memory capacity, and paranormal belief. Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research and Practice 1 (1), pp. 60-69. ISSN 2326-5523.

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    Abstract

    Two studies investigated the relationship between inattentional blindness, paranormal belief/experience, absorption, and working memory capacity (WMC). ‘Inattentional blindness’ (IB) refers to the failure to consciously register an unexpected visual stimulus or event when attention is diverted to a different task. Absorption is a highly focused state where individuals are unaware of stimuli outside of attentional focus and is linked with paranormal belief. It was predicted that IB individuals would have higher absorption scores and be more likely to believe in the paranormal than non-inattentionally blind (NIBs) individuals. In both studies, IBs had higher absorption and paranormal belief scores than NIBs, as predicted. In addition, Study 2 measured WMC. Although absorption predicted IB, when WMC and paranormal belief were entered into the analysis, only WMC predicted IB with IBs having lower WMC than NIBs. These data offer support for a cognitive deficit account of paranormal belief.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    Additional Information: This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record.
    Keyword(s) / Subject(s): Inattentional blindness, absorption, working memory capacity, paranormal belief
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Science > School of Psychological Sciences
    Depositing User: Anne Richards
    Date Deposited: 06 Apr 2016 14:28
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 17:22
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/14783

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