The strength of higher level beliefs can be predicted by something as basic- or low-level as attentional capture. Attentional capture is an automatic, involuntary phenomenon when an unattended or very salient (attractive) stimulus literally grabs our attention. Imagine a huge octopus entering a classroom and trying to sneak upon your teacher, regardless of how much you want to pay attention to the lesson, you just cannot resist noticing the octopus. Regardless of the goal-directed (top-down) actions, the attention cannot be helped since the stimulus is so salient (stimulus-driven attention), regardless of its relevance to the task. This is attentional capture.
In a study of Bressan, Kramer & Germani (2008), attentional capture (AC) has been found to be correlated with the beliefs in meaningfulness of coincidence which mediated the relationship between AC and religiosity. Participants saw always pair of two words in white color presented on black background. They had to press a key when a dot appeared on the screen. The meaning of the words and the task (pressing the keyboard when dot appeared) was irrelevant to the nature of the experiment. However, at a specific trial, one of the words was presented in white rectangle (attentional capture). The reaction time to responding to the dot appearing on the screen after this particular, critical trial was a measure of attentional capture (longer RT= greater AC). Participants had to indicate how surprised this event was; they had to judge how surprising and how frequent certain coincidences were, and also filled out religiosity and meaningfulness of coincidences questionnaires.
The experiment demonstrate that believers in meaningfulness of coincidence are more surprised by unexpected events- experience greater attentional capture than non-believers. However, they have a greater tendency to disregard and forget this particular information if it is inconsistent with their beliefs.
Furthermore, beliefs in meaningfulness was correlated (to no surprise) with religiosity.
The results of the current study show that higher order cognition might be modulated/ might modulate low-level information processing.
In a study of Bressan, Kramer & Germani (2008), attentional capture (AC) has been found to be correlated with the beliefs in meaningfulness of coincidence which mediated the relationship between AC and religiosity. Participants saw always pair of two words in white color presented on black background. They had to press a key when a dot appeared on the screen. The meaning of the words and the task (pressing the keyboard when dot appeared) was irrelevant to the nature of the experiment. However, at a specific trial, one of the words was presented in white rectangle (attentional capture). The reaction time to responding to the dot appearing on the screen after this particular, critical trial was a measure of attentional capture (longer RT= greater AC). Participants had to indicate how surprised this event was; they had to judge how surprising and how frequent certain coincidences were, and also filled out religiosity and meaningfulness of coincidences questionnaires.
The experiment demonstrate that believers in meaningfulness of coincidence are more surprised by unexpected events- experience greater attentional capture than non-believers. However, they have a greater tendency to disregard and forget this particular information if it is inconsistent with their beliefs.
Furthermore, beliefs in meaningfulness was correlated (to no surprise) with religiosity.
The results of the current study show that higher order cognition might be modulated/ might modulate low-level information processing.
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