Schulter Günter, Papousek Ilona
Department of Psychology, University of Graz, Graz, Austria.
Cortex. 2008 Nov-Dec;44(10):1326-35. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2007.08.022. Epub 2008 Jul 10.
The goal of this study was to investigate the possible relationship between established measures of body and brain asymmetries and individual differences in paranormal beliefs. In addition to behavioural measures of cerebral laterality, measures of facial features and finger length were taken to calculate body asymmetry scores and indicators of fluctuating asymmetry (average absolute differences between left and right body features). Both the direction and degree of laterality measures were used. In addition to that, quantitative measures of inconsistency of cerebral lateralization were obtained. Results indicated that a stronger belief in paranormal phenomena was associated with fluctuating asymmetry of finger length, and that this aspect of body asymmetry may be related to greater intraindividual variability in the degree of 'atypical' functional lateralization. This intraindividual variability index, in turn, significantly predicted strength of belief in the paranormal. Belief in the paranormal was also higher in women than men and it was negatively correlated with the education level. In sum, these findings suggest that a part of the variance of strength of belief in paranormal phenomena can be explained by patterns of functional hemispheric asymmetry that may be related to perturbations during fetal development.
本研究的目的是调查已确立的身体和大脑不对称测量指标与超自然信念个体差异之间的可能关系。除了大脑偏侧性的行为测量指标外，还采集了面部特征和手指长度的测量数据，以计算身体不对称分数和波动不对称指标（身体左右特征之间的平均绝对差异）。同时使用了偏侧性测量指标的方向和程度。此外，还获得了大脑偏侧化不一致性的量化测量指标。结果表明，对超自然现象的更强信念与手指长度的波动不对称有关，而且身体不对称的这一方面可能与“非典型”功能偏侧化程度上更大的个体内变异性有关。反过来，这个个体内变异性指数显著预测了对超自然现象的信念强度。女性对超自然现象的信念也高于男性，且与教育水平呈负相关。总之，这些发现表明，超自然现象信念强度的部分差异可以由功能性半球不对称模式来解释，这种模式可能与胎儿发育期间的扰动有关。
