Cognitive and neural foundations of religious belief.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Kapogiannis D
PROVIDER: S-EPMC2660736 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Mar
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Cognitive and neural foundations of religious belief.
Kapogiannis Dimitrios D Barbey Aron K AK Su Michael M Zamboni Giovanna G Krueger Frank F Grafman Jordan J
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20090309 12
We propose an integrative cognitive neuroscience framework for understanding the cognitive and neural foundations of religious belief. Our analysis reveals 3 psychological dimensions of religious belief (God's perceived level of involvement, God's perceived emotion, and doctrinal/experiential religious knowledge), which functional MRI localizes within networks processing Theory of Mind regarding intent and emotion, abstract semantics, and imagery. Our results are unique in demonstrating that spe ...[more]
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