Unconscious learning underlies belief in God, study suggests

Date:
September 9, 2020
Source:
Georgetown University Medical Center
Summary:
Individuals who can unconsciously predict complex patterns,
an ability called implicit pattern learning, are likely to hold
stronger beliefs that there is a god who creates patterns of events
in the universe, according to neuroscientists.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== [Hands raised to sunset, | Credit: (c) ipopba / stock.adobe.com] Hands
raised to sunset, prayer concept (stock image).

Credit: (c) ipopba / stock.adobe.com [Hands raised to sunset, | Credit:
(c) ipopba / stock.adobe.com] Hands raised to sunset, prayer concept
(stock image).

Credit: (c) ipopba / stock.adobe.com Close Individuals who can
unconsciously predict complex patterns, an ability called implicit pattern learning, are likely to hold stronger beliefs that there is a god who
creates patterns of events in the universe, according to neuroscientists
at Georgetown University.


========================================================================== Their research, reported in the journal Nature Communications, is
the first to use implicit pattern learning to investigate religious
belief. The study spanned two very different cultural and religious
groups, one in the U.S. and one in Afghanistan.

The goal was to test whether implicit pattern learning is a basis of
belief and, if so, whether that connection holds across different faiths
and cultures.

The researchers indeed found that implicit pattern learning appears to
offer a key to understanding a variety of religions.

"Belief in a god or gods who intervene in the world to create order is a
core element of global religions," says the study's senior investigator,
Adam Green, an associate professor in the Department of Psychology and Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience at Georgetown, and director
of the Georgetown Laboratory for Relational Cognition.

"This is not a study about whether God exists, this is a study about why
and how brains come to believe in gods. Our hypothesis is that people
whose brains are good at subconsciously discerning patterns in their environment may ascribe those patterns to the hand of a higher power,"
he adds.

"A really interesting observation was what happened between childhood
and adulthood," explains Green. The data suggest that if children are unconsciously picking up on patterns in the environment, their belief
is more likely to increase as they grow up, even if they are in a
nonreligious household.

Likewise, if they are not unconsciously picking up on patterns around
them, their belief is more likely to decrease as they grow up, even in
a religious household.

The study used a well-established cognitive test to measure implicit
pattern learning. Participants watched as a sequence of dots appeared
and disappeared on a computer screen. They pressed a button for each
dot. The dots moved quickly, but some participants -- the ones with the strongest implicit learning ability -- began to subconsciously learn
patterns hidden in the sequence, and even press the correct button for
the next dot before that dot actually appeared. However, even the best
implicit learners did not know that the dots formed patterns, showing
that the learning was happening at an unconscious level.

The U.S. section of the study enrolled a predominantly Christian group
of 199 participants from Washington, D.C. The Afghanistan section of the
study enrolled a group of 149 Muslim participants in Kabul. The study's
lead author was Adam Weinberger, a postdoctoral researcher in Green's lab
at Georgetown and at the University of Pennsylvania. Co-authors Zachery
Warren and Fathali Moghaddam led a team of local Afghan researchers who collected data in Kabul.

"The most interesting aspect of this study, for me, and also for the
Afghan research team, was seeing patterns in cognitive processes and
beliefs replicated across these two cultures," says Warren. "Afghans and Americans may be more alike than different, at least in certain cognitive processes involved in religious belief and making meaning of the world
around us. Irrespective of one's faith, the findings suggest exciting
insights into the nature of belief." "A brain that is more predisposed
to implicit pattern learning may be more inclined to believe in a god
no matter where in the world that brain happens to find itself, or in
which religious context," Green adds, though he cautions that further
research is necessary.

"Optimistically," Green concludes, "this evidence might provide some
neuro- cognitive common ground at a basic human level between believers
of disparate faiths." A scholar of the Middle East, Moghaddam is
a professor in Georgetown's Department of Psychology. Warren, who
received his doctorate in Psychology at Georgetown and also holds a
masters of divinity, directs the Asia Foundation's Survey of Afghan
People. Additional authors include Natalie Gallagher and Gwendolyn
English.


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
Georgetown_University_Medical_Center. Note: Content may be edited for
style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Adam B. Weinberger, Natalie M. Gallagher, Zachary J. Warren,
Gwendolyn A.

English, Fathali M. Moghaddam, Adam E. Green. Implicit pattern
learning predicts individual differences in belief in God in the
United States and Afghanistan. Nature Communications, 2020; 11:
4503 DOI: 10.1038/s41467- 020-18362-3 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200909085942.htm

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