Barnby Joseph M, Bell Vaughan
Department of Psychiatry, University College London, University of London , London , United Kingdom.
PeerJ. 2017 Mar 28;5:e3149. doi: 10.7717/peerj.3149. eCollection 2017.
The experience of 'sensed presence'-a feeling or sense that another entity, individual or being is present despite no clear sensory or perceptual evidence-is known to occur in the general population, appears more frequently in religious or spiritual contexts, and seems to be prominent in certain psychiatric or neurological conditions and may reflect specific functions of social cognition or body-image representation systems in the brain. Previous research has relied on ad-hoc measures of the experience and no specific psychometric scale to measure the experience exists to date.
Based on phenomenological description in the literature, we created the 16-item Sensed Presence Questionnaire (SenPQ). We recruited participants from (i) a general population sample, and; (ii) a sample including specific selection for religious affiliation, to complete the SenPQ and additional measures of well-being, schizotypy, social anxiety, social imagery, and spiritual experience. We completed an analysis to test internal reliability, the ability of the SenPQ to distinguish between religious and non-religious participants, and whether the SenPQ was specifically related to positive schizotypical experiences and social imagery. A factor analysis was also conducted to examine underlying latent variables.
The SenPQ was found to be reliable and valid, with religious participants significantly endorsing more items than non-religious participants, and the scale showing a selective relationship with construct relevant measures. Principal components analysis indicates two potential underlying factors interpreted as reflecting 'benign' and 'malign' sensed presence experiences.
The SenPQ appears to be a reliable and valid measure of sensed presence experience although further validation in neurological and psychiatric conditions is warranted.
“存在感”体验——即一种感觉或意识，认为尽管没有明确的感官或感知证据，但另一个实体、个体或存在物在场——在普通人群中已知会出现，在宗教或精神背景中出现得更频繁，并且在某些精神或神经疾病中似乎很突出，可能反映了大脑中社会认知或身体形象表征系统的特定功能。以往的研究依赖于对这种体验的临时测量方法，迄今为止尚无用于测量这种体验的特定心理测量量表。
基于文献中的现象学描述，我们编制了16项存在感问卷（SenPQ）。我们从（i）普通人群样本和（ii）包括按宗教信仰进行特定选择的样本中招募参与者，以完成SenPQ以及幸福感、分裂型人格特质、社交焦虑、社会意象和精神体验的额外测量。我们进行了一项分析，以测试内部信度、SenPQ区分宗教和非宗教参与者的能力，以及SenPQ是否与阳性分裂型体验和社会意象特别相关。还进行了因子分析以检查潜在的潜在变量。
发现SenPQ可靠且有效，宗教参与者认可的项目明显多于非宗教参与者，并且该量表与相关结构测量显示出选择性关系。主成分分析表明有两个潜在因素，可解释为反映“良性”和“恶性”存在感体验。
SenPQ似乎是一种可靠且有效的存在感体验测量工具，尽管在神经和精神疾病中还需要进一步验证。
