Hauntings and poltergeist-like episodes as a confluence of conventional phenomena: a general hypothesis

Paranormal experiences, sensory-processing sensitivity, and the priming of pareidolia

This investigation tested the effect of priming on pareidolia (the hearing of illusory words in ambiguous stimuli). Participants (41 women, 20 men, mean age 29.95 years) were assigned to primed (n = 30) or unprimed (n = 31) groups: the former were told the study was of ‘purported ghosts voices’, the latter ‘voices in noisy environments.’ Participants were assessed for perception of human voices within recordings of purported electronic voice phenomena (EVP), degraded human speech, normal human speech, and white noise. The primed group had significantly higher perception of voices within EVPs than in degraded speech, this difference was not found for unprimed participants. In contrast to the previous use of this design, the primed group did not have higher perception of voices in EVPs and degraded speech than did the unprimed group. The Aesthetic Sensitivity dimension of the Highly Sensitive Person Scale (HSPS) was associated with detection of degraded stimuli, but not with accuracy of stimulus identification. HSPS score was related to lifetime reporting of anomalous and paranormal experiences. This study partially replicates a paranormal priming effect and shows relationships between HSPS and detection of ambiguous stimuli and anomalous and paranormal experiences.

Coincidence judgment in causal reasoning: How coincidental is this?

Given the important conceptual connections between cause and coincidence as well as the extensive prior research on causality asking, "how causal is this?", the present research proposes and evaluated a psychological construction of coincidentality as the answer to the question, "how coincidental is this?" Four experiments measured the judgment properties of a reasonably large set of real coincidences from an initial diary study. These judgements included coincidentality and an array of other judgments about event uncertainty, hypothesis belief and surprise as predictors of coincidentality consistent with and supporting our prior definition of coincidence (Johansen & Osman, 2015): "coincidences are surprising pattern repetitions that are observed to be unlikely by chance but are nonetheless ascribed to chance since the search for causal mechanisms has not produced anything more plausible than mere chance." In particular, we evaluated formal models based on judgements of uncertainty, belief and surprise as predictors to develop a model of coincidentality. Ultimately, we argue that coincidentality is a marker for causal suspicion/discovery in terms of a flag that a new, unknown causal mechanism may be operating.

Ambiguous Origins and Indications of “Poltergeists”

The phenomena traditionally attributed to recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis is shown to be inherently comprised of vague sensory and environmental stimuli. The ambiguous nature of these experiences precludes any definite supposition as to their source of origin or whether there is only one causal mechanism. Further, many of the so-called paranormal effects are fully comparable to known psychophysical phenomena. Consequently, it is argued that this hypothesis as an explanation of poltergeist-like experiences is premature and unjustified.

Preliminary study of tolerance of ambiguity of individuals reporting paranormal experiences

This research tested the notion that poltergeist-like experiences reflect the need to explain anomalous personal experiences. Thus, it was hypothesized that percipients of poltergeists would score lower on tolerance of ambiguity than controls. Further, it was hypothesized that tolerance of ambiguity would negatively correlate with the number of different categories of poltergeist experience. 30 self-identified percipients of poltergeist-like phenomena and 30 self-identified nonpercipients of the paranormal were administered the Rydell-Rosen Ambiguity Tolerance Scale and Houran and Lange's Poltergeist Experiences Checklist. Results partially supported predictions. Percipients of the paranormal scored significantly lower on tolerance of ambiguity than nonpercipients, but scores on the experiences checklist did not significantly correlate with scores on tolerance of ambiguity. The results supported the main hypothesis but more detailed research is needed to clarify the roles of age and tolerance of ambiguity in the perception of anomalous phenomena.

Context-induced paranormal experiences: support for Houran and Lange's model of haunting phenomena

Houran and Lange's psychological model of haunting phenomena predicts that contextual variables alone are sufficient to induce poltergeist-like perceptions. 22 subjects individually visited five areas of a performance theater and were asked to notice the environment. 11 subjects in an informed condition were instructed that the location was haunted, while 11 in the control condition were told that the building was simply under renovation. Subjects' perceptions in both conditions were recorded via Green, et al.'s 1992 experiential questionnaire which contains 10 subscales related to psychological and physiological perceptions. Analysis yielded significantly more intense perceptual experiences on nine of the ten subscales in the informed condition, indicating that demand characteristics alone can stimulate paranormal-type experiences.