Citation

Gray K, Knickman TA, Wegner DM. Cognition 2011; 121(2): 275-280.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.cognition.2011.06.014

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Patients in persistent vegetative state (PVS) may be biologically alive, but these experiments indicate that people see PVS as a state curiously more dead than dead. Experiment 1 found that PVS patients were perceived to have less mental capacity than the dead. Experiment 2 explained this effect as an outgrowth of afterlife beliefs, and the tendency to focus on the bodies of PVS patients at the expense of their minds. Experiment 3 found that PVS is also perceived as "worse" than death: people deem early death better than being in PVS. These studies suggest that people perceive the minds of PVS patients as less valuable than those of the dead--ironically, this effect is especially robust for those high in religiosity.

Language: en