Publications

Publication details [#12463]

Fondevila, Sabela, Sabrina Aristei, Werner Sommer, Laura Jiménez-Ortega and Pilar Casado. 2016. Counterintuitive Religious Ideas and Metaphoric Thinking: An Event-Related Brain Potential Study. Cognitive Science 40 (4).
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Place, Publisher
Wiley Online Library

Abstract

As counterintuitive ideas from myths and religious texts have been shown to be more acceptable than other world knowledge violations, this experiment aims at exploring whether they are connected to their mode of interpretation (literal vs. metaphorical). The subjects of this experiment were presented with verification questions that alluded either the literal or metaphorical meaning of a previously read sentence read beforehand (counterintuitive religious, counterintuitive non-religious and intuitive), in a block-wise design. behavioral and electrophysiological findings matched. Unlike the literal interpretation of the sentences, the induced metaphorical understanding enabled the integration of religious counterintuitions while the semantic processing of non-religious counterintuitions was not influenced by the interpretation mode. Despite their counterintuitive nature, religious ideas work like other examples of figurative language contributing to thei racceptability disregarding their counterintive nature.