Objectives Neuropsychological evidences indicate that paranormal believers might have diffculty in early stages of processing visual global-local stimuli. This study was carried out to compare global-local visual processing and its cerebral lateralization among believers and non-believers in the paranormal. Method The present study is a causal-comparative study. 16 believers and 16 non-believers in the paranormal, matched together in terms of age, education and marital status took part in the study. The participants completed a computerized local-global task (face / house categorization task), the paranormal beliefs questionnaire (Blackmore and Moore, 1994) and the brain lateralization scale (Wells and Wagner, 1985). Data were analyzed using a mixed analysis of variance with a repeated measures design. Results Results indicated that paranormal believers are generally faster in global processing than local processing and have a relative defcit???? In local processing in the right hemisphere. Conclusion Relative defcit in local processing in paranormal believers indicates a defcit in early stages of information perceptual-cognitive processing and suggests the possibility of a right hemisphere lateralization.
