Showing category "Science" (Show all posts)

Filling in the Blanks: How a Quirk of the Brain Can Cause Perceived Paranormal Phenomena

Posted by Karen Frazier on Tuesday, February 12, 2013, In : Science 
You've probably heard of pattern recognition - the ability to recognize faces, objects music, or other sensory inputs with only a few pieces of the whole. For example, if you're old like me, you'll remember a game show from the 70s called Name That Tune. In one of the show's segments, contestants would "bid" against one another, betting on their ability to name a tune in a certain number of notes (to be fair, they also typically had a clue that provided some obscure fact about the song). The ...
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Brain Science and the Paranormal

Posted by Karen Frazier on Monday, February 11, 2013, In : Science 
This article is part of the SSPR Blog's ongoing look at physiological and psychological factors that may be misperceived as paranormal phenomena. 

Many cases of reported paranormal phenomena can be explained by common biochemical or psychological events. One such factor is the way human beings store memories in their brains. 

Brain scientists have found that the way we store and retrieve memories makes it easy for us to misperceive or misremember events. The brain doesn't store memories in enti...
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Sleep Paralysis - Old Hag Syndrome

Posted by Karen Frazier on Sunday, February 10, 2013, In : Science 
The human mind is an amazing thing, and it's surprising how little science really understands it. Brain scientists have made some headway into understanding the brain's remarkably complex physiology, but many important concepts still elude them.

Still, we do know enough about the human brain to understand that there are a number of physiological and psychological factors that can influence perception of paranormal events. Some of these are quite common and some less so, but all can lead to exp...
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