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This scoping review aims to capture the data available from the published literature on the frequency and impact of PUI in psychiatric patients. Of note, some forms of offline gaming do not involve the active use of the Internet beyond an initial download of software, while some forms of gambling combine online and offline methods using mobile phones. As these behaviours may be just as disabling as fully online versions, we will include studies investigating all forms of digital addictive behaviours involving psychiatric patients.

Research exploring the relationship between paranormal beliefs and emotion have shown interesting findings relating to order effects. In particular, Dudley (2000) found that participants who completed Tobacyk’s Paranormal Belief Scale (PBS; Tobacyk & Milford, 1983) before they completed the Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS; Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988) demonstrated higher negative affect scores compared to participants who completed the PBS after the PANAS. In a later study, Dudley (2002) found a similar order effect in relation to emotional intelligence, with participants who completed the PBS prior to the Emotional Intelligence Scale (EIS; Schutte et al., 1998) demonstrating lower emotional intelligence scores compared to participants who completed the PBS after the EIS. This study will aim to replicate these order effect findings using a newly developed measure of paranormal belief. To investigate whether there are order effects present in studies using paranormal belief questionnaires and those relating to emotion and emotional intelligence, a between-subjects design will be used. All respondents will be presented with the EIS, PANAS, and the Paranormal and Superstitious Beliefs Scale (PSBS; Dean et al., submitted). The presentation of these scales will be manipulated so that half of all respondents are first presented with the EIS, then the PSBS, followed by the PANAS, while the other half of the respondents will complete the PANAS first, then the PSBS, followed by the EIS. All participants will have the paranormal belief measure presented between the emotional intelligence and affect scales.

The systematic review presented in this preregistration will examine published and unpublished literature reporting relationships between paranormal belief, schizotypy, and cognitive function. To the authors’ knowledge this is the first review of the specified literature to be preregistered and will be the first review in the area of interest since 1993 (see Irwin, 1993).

Research exploring the correlates of paranormal belief has demonstrated an inverse relationship with executive functions such as impulse control and cognitive organisation (see Lindeman, Riekki, & Hood, 2011; Wain & Spinella, 2007). Little research however has been conducted in this area, and few studies have used behavioural measures of executive function. As such, the aim of this study is to assess one specific aspect of executive functioning using both behavioural tests and self-report methods. The study will assess the relationship between paranormal belief, set-shifting and task-switching (i.e. cognitive flexibility). To investigate whether belief in paranormal phenomena is associated with weaker cognitive flexibility, respondents will complete measures of: paranormal beliefs, self-assessed cognitive flexibility, and two behavioural tests of cognitive flexibility. We will measure paranormal beliefs with the Paranormal and Superstitious Beliefs Scale (PSBS; Dean et al., submitted), and self-assessed cognitive flexibility using the Cognitive Flexibility Inventory (CFI; Dennis & Vander Wal, 2010). The two tests of cognitive flexibility will be an adapted version of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST; see Berg, 1948; Grant & Berg, 1948) and a cued task-switching task (CTS; for examples of these tasks see Gollan, Kleinman, & Wierenga, 2014; Capa, Bouquet, Dreher, & Dufour, 2013) to measure set-shifting and task-switching ability, respectively. Research has indicated a positive relationship between belief in the paranormal and schizotypal thinking (see Drinkwater, Denovan, Dagnall, & Parker, 2020; Kelley, 2011; Hergovich, Schott, & Arendasy, 2008). Additionally, schizotypal thinking has also been linked to executive functions (see Zouraraki et al., 2016; Louise, Gurvich, Neill, Tan, Van Rheenen, & Rossell, 2015; Matheson & Langdon, 2008). Within this body of research, recent findings have shown a negative relationship between schizotypal thinking and cognitive flexibility, with participants who score high on measures of schizotypy producing more perseverative errors on set-shifting tasks (Wilson, Christensen, King, Li, & Zelazo, 2008), and showing increased switch costs in incongruent trials of a cued task-switching task (Breeze, Kirkham, & Marí-Beffa, 2011). Nonetheless, findings from studies exploring schizotypal thinking and executive functioning are somewhat inconsistent, with some finding no significant effects and others demonstrating effect sizes that range from moderate to large (see Laws, Patel, & Tyson, 2008). While, to the authors’ knowledge, no work has combined all three factors of schizotypal thinking, paranormal beliefs and executive functions, some evidence suggests that belief in the paranormal mediates the relationship between schizotypy and probabilistic reasoning (Dagnall, Denovan, Drinkwater, Parker, & Clough, 2016). As paranormal beliefs have been shown to mediate the relationship between schizotypal thinking and other cognitive functions, it is possible that these beliefs might also mediate the relationship between schizotypal thinking and cognitive flexibility, and could potentially account for some of the inconsistency in the literature surrounding schizotypy and executive functioning. With this in mind, our proposed study will also present respondents with the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire-Brief (SPQ-B; Raine & Benishay, 1995) adapted with a Likert response format (see Cohen, Matthews, Najolia, & Brown, 2010; Wuthrich & Bates, 2005). The addition of the SPQ-B will permit further assessment of the relationship between schizotypy and both paranormal beliefs and executive functions, and will help to determine whether paranormal beliefs mediate the relationship between schizotypy and cognitive flexibility.

This preregistration describes two replications of our study “Paranormal belief and cognitive flexibility: Associations between set-shifting, task-switching and schizotypal thinking” (https://osf.io/h3vws/). The findings from the original study (study 1) suggested a positive relationship between paranormal beliefs and cognitive flexibility, while findings from a subsequent (preregistered; see https://osf.io/ecrq2) replication (study 2) suggested a negative relationship between paranormal beliefs and cognitive flexibility. The two studies described here are extended replications of our previous two studies, now manipulating the education level of participants as a possible explanation for the conflicting findings mentioned above.

This research aims to explore differences in episodic memory descriptions between paranormal believers and sceptics. Specifically, the study will focus on events related to paranormal phenomena and experiences that may have contributed towards belief or disbelief. The study will employ an online survey method, hosted using the Gorilla Experiment Builder (Anwyl-Irvine et al., 2018; www.gorilla.sc), where participants will be asked to provide written qualitative descriptions of their memories and experiences relating to purportedly paranormal phenomena. The survey will also include a short demographics section and the Paranormal and Supernatural Beliefs Scale (Dean et al., 2021). The study will use both qualitative and quantitative analysis methods.

Supporting documentation for the publication: "Whole Life: a feasibility study of a recovery-focussed intervention in patients with stabilised schizophrenia"

This preregistration describes a replication of our study “Paranormal belief and cognitive flexibility: Associations between set-shifting, task-switching and schizotypal thinking”.

Additional file 1. Paranormal and Supernatural Beliefs Scale.

This article examines how the French army developed its tank doctrine during the Great War. How that doctrine came to be formulated and how it worked in practice will be discussed, as will the obstacles to devising such doctrine in the context of continuous and large-scale operations on the Western Front from 1916 to the end of the war. The three French tank designs, the Schneider, the St Chamond (both medium tanks) and the Renault light tank had to be tested and developed in the field, as was the doctrine used to employ them. As will be shown, despite developing sound tank doctrine on a tactical and operational level reasonably quickly, the French army would then discover that good doctrine was only part of the equation leading to military effectiveness, illustrating Clausewitz’s dictum that ‘everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult’., British Journal for Military History, Vol 5 No 2 (2019): Issue 5.2, October 2019: Special Issue - Transforming War, 1914-1918