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Café Scientifique
Bishop's Stortford |





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Monday February 15th 2010
Is it creative to believe in the
paranormal?
- by Dr. Christine Mohr
Department of Experimental Psychology at the
University of Bristol |
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Madness and creativity are
often considered together. This claim seems supported by personal reports
and insight into the mental health of famous artists. Christine presented
studies that link language processing in the two hemispheres to
associative word processing, paranormal belief and creativity. Christine
invited the audience to consider the idea that these links could explain the wide
prevalence of paranormal beliefs in the general population.

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Christine Mohr did her PhD on the
"neuropsychology of magical belief" at the University of Zurich,
Switzerland, and has continued working in this field ever since. In 2004,
she joined the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of
Bristol as a lecturer where she teaches Neuropsychiatry. With respect to
paranormal belief, she mainly investigates and publishes on the
neuropsychological correlates of these beliefs, and aims to understand why
some individuals with such "bizarre" beliefs are considered by most as
absolutely healthy (but spiritual), while in others it is considered
pathological (psychotic). This is particularly relevant, because the
dimensional, or rather quasi-dimensional view of psychosis would indicate
that the healthy expression might have evolutionary advantages.

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Christine passed on a couple
of interesting Questionnaires that she referred to in her talk.
They are both Word documents
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Page last updated by Richard Epworth
25-02-10
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