Boston College on Sensation and Perception Essay

From what you’ve learned in the chapter on Sensation and Perception, you should now know how easily our perceptions can be fooled. We are susceptible to illusions (for all senses), our brains actively try to interpret ambiguous or partially processed information which often results in our misinterpreting the world, and our brains lie to us in order to make the world seem more stable (e.g., the constancies).

Knowing all this, then, should we believe a person when they claim that they’ve seen a ghost, or “spoken with dead people” or were abducted by aliens (etc.)? What sort of evidence should be considered “good enough” to believe such extraordinary claims?