French Christopher C, Santomauro Julia, Hamilton Victoria, Fox Rachel, Thalbourne Michael A
Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit, Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths College, University of London, London, UK.
Cortex. 2008 Nov-Dec;44(10):1387-95. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2007.11.011. Epub 2008 Jun 5.
Previous research has shown that people reporting contact with aliens, known as "experiencers", appear to have a different psychological profile compared to control participants. They show higher levels of dissociativity, absorption, paranormal belief and experience, and possibly fantasy proneness. They also appear to show greater susceptibility to false memories as assessed using the Deese/Roediger-McDermott technique. The present study reports an attempt to replicate these previous findings as well as assessing tendency to hallucinate and self-reported incidence of sleep paralysis in a sample of 19 UK-based experiencers and a control sample matched on age and gender. Experiencers were found to show higher levels of dissociativity, absorption, paranormal belief, paranormal experience, self-reported psychic ability, fantasy proneness, tendency to hallucinate, and self-reported incidence of sleep paralysis. No significant differences were found between the groups in terms of susceptibility to false memories. Implications of the results are discussed and suggestions are made for future avenues of research.
先前的研究表明，那些声称与外星人有过接触的人，即所谓的“体验者”，与对照组参与者相比，似乎有着不同的心理特征。他们表现出更高水平的分离性、专注性、超自然信念和体验，以及可能的幻想倾向。使用迪斯/罗迪格-麦克德莫特技术评估时，他们似乎也更容易产生错误记忆。本研究报告了一项尝试，旨在复制这些先前的发现，并评估19名英国体验者样本以及在年龄和性别上匹配的对照组样本中的幻觉倾向和自我报告的睡眠麻痹发生率。结果发现，体验者表现出更高水平的分离性、专注性、超自然信念、超自然体验、自我报告的通灵能力、幻想倾向、幻觉倾向以及自我报告的睡眠麻痹发生率。两组在对错误记忆的易感性方面未发现显著差异。文中讨论了研究结果的意义，并为未来的研究方向提出了建议。
