Religiosity is associated with less prediction of the typical: an event-related brain potential study.

Religiosity is associated with less prediction of the typical: an event-related brain potential study.
Biol Psychol. 2020 Mar 29;:107884
Authors: Kiang M, Cupid J, Ahmed S, Lepock JR, Girard TA
Abstract
Why are some people more religious than others? According to one hypothesis, people who strongly seek definitive explanations for situations with incomplete information are more likely to be religious. According to a different hypothesis, individuals with smaller "prediction error" responses to unexpected stimuli are more likely to discount evidence contradicting religious beliefs, predisposing them to maintain such beliefs. We sought neurophysiological evidence for these hypotheses using the N400 event-related potential (ERP), which is smaller to more contextually expected stimuli, reflecting prediction of probable completions for meaningful situations. We recorded ERPs from participants viewing category definitions followed by high-typicality category exemplar (HTE), low-typicality exemplar (LTE), or non-exemplar (NE) words. As expected, N400 s were largest for NEs, intermediate for LTEs, and smallest for HTEs. Religiosity correlated with smaller N400 amplitude differences between HTEs and both LTEs and NEs. Less strong prediction of probable stimuli based on prior information may predispose to religiosity.
PMID: 32234502 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Source: Biological Psychology - March 28, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Kiang M, Cupid J, Ahmed S, Lepock JR, Girard TA Tags: Biol Psychol Source Type: research