Paranormal Experiences: Brain's Executive Functions?
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Do people who see ghosts think differently?
People who report more paranormal experiences show subtle differences in memory and decision-making.
In 2022, a team of researchers wondered if people who frequently encounter the paranormal think differently than those who don't. They surveyed over 500 adults to map the cognitive landscape of these unusual experiences, looking for patterns in how these individuals process everyday mental tasks.
Key Findings
- People who reported lots of different types of paranormal experiences tended to struggle more with everyday mental tasks like staying focused, making decisions, and juggling multiple pieces of information.
- However, these were subtle differences, not severe impairments.
- Interestingly, while their attention wandered more easily, they didn't have worse long-term memory retrieval than others.
What Is This About?
The researchers asked 516 adults about their paranormal encounters—whether they'd seen ghosts, visited psychics or mediums, or felt they had psychic abilities. Then they tested cognitive skills through questionnaires measuring memory, decision-making, and emotional control. Using a statistical technique called latent profile analysis, they grouped people into four distinct 'types' based on how much paranormal experience they reported, rather than deciding the categories ahead of time.
Latent profile analysis of self-report questionnaires measuring paranormal experiences and executive functions, followed by multivariate analysis of variance to compare cognitive profiles across experience-based subgroups.
Individuals with broader paranormal experience profiles showed higher levels of executive functioning difficulties, specifically in working memory, decision making, and attention tracking, but not in memory retrieval.
How Good Is the Evidence?
516 participants—roughly the size of a small high school. Previous similar studies in parapsychology often used 100-200 participants, making this a medium-sized sample for this research field.
Supporters might argue these cognitive differences reflect genuine perceptual sensitivities or that anomalous experiences alter brain function over time. Skeptics might counter that these executive function difficulties make people more prone to misinterpreting random events as paranormal or confabulating false memories. Both sides agree that understanding the cognitive profiles of experiencers is valuable—whether to explain illusions or to characterize genuine anomalous cognition.
Mainstream: These cognitive differences explain why some people misinterpret normal events as paranormal through attention lapses and poor reality monitoring. / Moderate: Certain cognitive styles may make people more likely to notice coincidences or have unusual experiences without proving or disproving the paranormal. / Frontier: These executive function patterns might reflect neural configurations more open to receiving anomalous information from the environment.
Many assume that if people who see ghosts have different cognitive profiles, this proves ghosts are imaginary or that these people are 'crazy.' Actually, this study doesn't answer whether paranormal experiences are real or imagined—it only shows that frequent experiencers have different thinking patterns, which could mean many things: different brains might process unusual perceptions differently, or unusual experiences might affect cognition, or both could stem from a third factor.
To determine if these cognitive differences cause paranormal experiences or result from them, researchers would need longitudinal studies tracking people over months or years, or experimental designs testing cognitive function before and after spontaneous anomalous experiences. This study meets the criteria for identifying an interesting correlation pattern, but not for establishing cause and effect.
Overall, inter-class comparisons identified subtle differences in executive functions related to experience.
Stance: Mixed
What Does It Mean?
It's like noticing that your friend who always loses their keys and struggles to focus also happens to be the one who claims to see ghosts—this study checks if that pattern holds true across hundreds of people, and whether different types of spooky experiences cluster with specific thinking styles.
This study illustrates the difference between correlation and causation: finding that two things occur together (like paranormal experiences and memory lapses) doesn't tell us which causes which, or if a third factor influences both.
Understanding Terms
What This Study Claims
Findings
On everyday memory measures, paranormal experience classes differed in attention tracking (focus loss) and visual reconstruction, but showed no differences in retrieval failures.
moderateBreadth of paranormal experience is associated with higher levels of executive functioning difficulties, specifically in general executive function, working memory, and decision making.
moderateMethodology
Four distinct latent classes of paranormal experiencers were identified based on patterns of experience, practitioner visiting, and self-reported ability.
moderateLimitations
The study was exploratory in nature and sampled only a limited subset of the population, limiting generalizability.
moderateThis summary is for general information about current research. It does not constitute medical advice. The scientific interpretation of these results is debated among researchers. If personally affected, please consult qualified professionals.