Shifting Between Models of Mind: New Insights Into How Human Minds Give Rise to Experiences of Spiritual Presence and Alternative Realities.
Kara Weisman, Tanya Marie Luhrmann
Topics in Cognitive Science April 1, 2025 DOI: 10.1111/tops.70002 (opens in new tab) via PubMed
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractHearing the voice of God or seeing an ancestor's spirit are experiences of the mind, tied to mental models and cognitive-epistemic attitudes about the mind. With the right combination of these, one's own thoughts and inner sensations can be experienced as coming from somewhere or someone else. Results from a large-scale study of U.S. adults (N = 1779) support the theory that spiritual experiences are facilitated by a dynamic interaction between mental models and cognitive-epistemic attitudes: a person is more likely to hear God speak if they have the epistemic flexibility and cultural support to shift temporarily away from a mundane model of mind into a more 'porous' way of thinking. This lays a foundation for considering how such interactions might also facilitate fiction writing and scientific discovery.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Large-scale study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 1,779 |
| Population | U.S. adults |
| Keywords | Absorption Cognitive attitudes Cultural models Epistemic flexibility Mental models |
| Key finding | Spiritual experiences are facilitated by a dynamic interaction between mental models and cognitive-epistemic attitudes, where epistemic flexibility and cultural support enable a shift to a more porous way of thinking. |
Abstract
Phenomenal experiences of immaterial spiritual beings-hearing the voice of God, seeing the spirit of an ancestor-are a valuable and largely untapped resource for the field of cognitive science. Such experiences, we argue, are experiences of the mind, tied to mental models and cognitive-epistemic attitudes about the mind, and thus provide a striking example of how, with the right combination of mental models and cognitive-epistemic attitudes, one's own thoughts and inner sensations can be experienced as coming from somewhere or someone else. In this paper, we present results from a large-scale study of U.S. adults (N = 1779) that provides new support for our theory that spiritual experiences are facilitated by a dynamic interaction between mental models and cognitive-epistemic attitudes: A person is more likely to hear God speak if they have the epistemic flexibility and cultural support to shift, temporarily, away from a mundane model of mind into a more "porous" way of thinking and being. This, in turn, lays the foundation for a meditation on how mental models and cognitive-epistemic attitudes might also interact to facilitate other phenomena of interest to cognitive science, such as fiction writing and scientific discovery.