Examination of Retention and Recall of Polytheistic Versus Monotheistic Religious Concepts

Polytheistic and monotheistic ideas may lead to different processing in the brain, an understudied area generally and firmly within the 4E paradigm, especially in relation to embodiment. This paper uses a recognition memory paradigm to compare electroencephalography (EEG) signals and both reaction time and accuracy during the retrieval of polytheistic and monotheistic god concepts. We use EEG to analyze alpha oscillations whose de-synchronization reveals the neurological difficulty of ideas due to novelty or conceptual complexity. Word pairs of polytheistic or monotheistic ideas were presented to subjects, whose brains were analyzed during identification (polytheistic vs. monotheistic) and recall, alongside their reaction time and recall accuracy. No major support was found for different alpha oscillation levels during processing of polytheistic versus monotheistic ideas between monotheistic and religiously unaffiliated subjects. Meanwhile, a significant difference was found in reaction time during recall across both monotheistic and religiously unaffiliated subjects, as polytheistic ideas were recalled more quickly in both groups. These findings bear on dominant theories in the cognitive science of religion that privilege powerful and automatic agency detection in humans’ evolved past, alongside the cultural record where the dominant form of religious belief historically was polytheistic. It also contributes to 4E approaches to religion, shedding light on how religious ideas and concepts—here in the form of word pairs—both draw from how the brain understands embodiment and themselves are processed in embodied, neurologically specific ways.