Overview

Christine A. Simmonds-Moore has established herself as a leading researcher in the psychological study of anomalous experiences and paranormal belief. Her work is distinguished by a commitment to rigorous mixed-methods research that takes subjective experiences seriously while examining the cognitive, perceptual, and personality factors that shape how people interpret unusual phenomena. Rather than dismissing anomalous experiences as mere delusion or fraud, her approach seeks to understand the psychological and phenomenological reality of these experiences, what they feel like to the person having them, how they are interpreted, and what cognitive and sensory traits correlate with their occurrence.

Her research spans multiple domains: the psychology of paranormal belief and disbelief, the phenomenology of specific anomalous experiences such as psychometry and apparitions, the role of individual differences in anomalous cognition, and the relationship between emotional states and anomalous perception. A recurring theme in her work is the investigation of perceptual biases, how selective attention, confirmation bias, and other cognitive filters shape both the formation of paranormal beliefs and the interpretation of ambiguous experiences as paranormal. This focus on perception and cognition has positioned her work at the intersection of anomalistic psychology (the study of unusual experiences through conventional psychological frameworks) and parapsychology proper (the empirical study of psi phenomena).

Life and career

Simmonds-Moore conducted early research on the relationship between personality and anomalous experiences, examining how traits such as schizotypy, creativity, and openness to experience correlate with both paranormal belief and reported psi phenomena. Her work in this period established a foundation for understanding individual differences in anomalous cognition, the recognition that not all people are equally likely to report or experience anomalous phenomena, and that personality and cognitive style play a significant role in shaping these differences.

A major contribution to the field came through her collaborative work on Anomalistic Psychology, a comprehensive textbook co-authored with Nils J. Holt, David Luke, and Chris C. French. This volume synthesized contemporary research on how psychological factors (cognitive biases, personality traits, emotional states, and perceptual processes) shape experiences interpreted as paranormal.⁶ The book addressed cognitive explanations for anomalous experiences,⁷ personality and individual differences,⁸ methodological issues in psi research,⁹ and specific phenomena including apparitions,¹⁰ out-of-body and near-death experiences,¹¹ and mental mediumship.¹² The textbook became influential in academic psychology programs as a scholarly resource for understanding anomalous experiences without requiring readers to adopt either a paranormal or purely reductionist stance.

Her research on perceptual biases deepened during the 2010s. In a landmark study, she investigated how believers and disbelievers in the paranormal differ in their perceptual processing of ambiguous stimuli and information.² This work demonstrated that paranormal belief is not simply a matter of credulity or irrationality, but rather reflects systematic differences in how people attend to, interpret, and remember information, differences that can be measured and studied empirically.

Simmonds-Moore has also explored the relationship between grief, emotional stress, and anomalous experiences. In collaboration with colleagues, she conducted a phenomenological analysis examining how bereavement and emotional distress correlate with increased reports of anomalous phenomena.⁵ This work suggests that emotional states modulate perceptual openness and may increase the likelihood that ambiguous stimuli are interpreted as anomalous or paranormal.

Her research on sleep patterns and personality revealed correlations between sleep characteristics and the frequency of subjective anomalous experiences,⁴ suggesting that physiological states and trait characteristics interact to shape anomalous perception. She has also examined how anomalous experiences might be therapeutically engaged for mental health and transcendence,¹³ positioning anomalous experiences not solely as objects of scientific study but as potentially meaningful aspects of human psychology that warrant clinical and existential attention.

In recent years, Simmonds-Moore has turned attention to synesthesia, the neurological condition in which stimulation of one sensory pathway leads to automatic experiences in another, as a lens for understanding anomalous perception. Her phenomenological analysis of synesthesia as an exceptional experience provided insights into consciousness and perception,¹⁴ and she has explored synesthesia as a perceptual pathway to unseen realities.¹⁵ This work connects sensory processing differences to anomalous cognition, suggesting that individuals with atypical sensory integration may be more likely to report anomalous experiences.

Her most recent major project is a comprehensive mixed-methods investigation of psychometry, the reported ability to obtain information about a person or object through physical contact with an object associated with that person.¹ This study represents a significant expansion of the empirical base for understanding psychometry, which had received little systematic psychological research despite its prominence in paranormal folklore and practice. The research examined how ASMR, synesthesia, and other sensory and cognitive traits correlate with psychometry experiences, and conducted qualitative analysis of the phenomenology of psychometry itself.

Simmonds-Moore has also engaged with broader questions in parapsychology and consciousness studies. She has contributed commentary on debates concerning postmortem survival of consciousness, examining how psi data should be interpreted in the context of survival hypotheses.¹⁶ She has written on the gendering of paranormal research and experience, bringing feminist perspectives to the study of anomalous phenomena.¹⁷ And she has reviewed contemporary work on ghosts and haunting experiences, engaging with collaborative, adversarial approaches to paranormal research that bracket individual beliefs in favor of systematic investigation.¹⁸

Research

Perceptual biases and paranormal belief. A central theme in Simmonds-Moore’s work is the investigation of how cognitive and perceptual biases shape paranormal belief and the interpretation of anomalous experiences. Rather than treating paranormal belief as irrational or pathological, her research examines the specific perceptual and cognitive mechanisms, selective attention, confirmation bias, pattern recognition, and memory reconstruction, that lead people to interpret ambiguous experiences as paranormal. This approach is grounded in the recognition that all human perception is selective and interpretive; the question is not whether believers are biased (they are), but how their biases differ from those of skeptics, and what psychological and cognitive factors drive these differences.²

Individual differences and anomalous cognition. Simmonds-Moore has consistently investigated how personality traits, cognitive styles, and sensory processing differences correlate with anomalous experiences and psi performance. Her work on schizotypy, a personality dimension characterized by unusual perceptual experiences and magical thinking, examined how different clusters of schizotypy relate to paranormal belief, creativity, and intelligence.¹⁹ She has explored the hypothesis that latent inhibition (the cognitive ability to filter out irrelevant stimuli) may underpin both creativity and anomalous cognition, suggesting a shared neurobiological mechanism.³ This line of research proposes that individuals with reduced latent inhibition may be more open to perceiving subtle or anomalous information, and that this same cognitive style may enhance creative thinking.

Her investigations of trait and state factors in psi performance examined how stable individual differences interact with momentary psychological states to influence psi task performance.²⁰ This work reflects a sophisticated understanding of psi as a phenomenon that emerges from the interaction of dispositional and situational factors, rather than as a fixed ability or a simple function of belief.

Psychometry and sensory processing. Simmonds-Moore’s recent mixed-methods study of psychometry represents the most comprehensive empirical investigation of this phenomenon to date. The research employed a convergent mixed-methods online survey to explore how synesthesia and autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) correlate with psychometry and other anomalous experiences.¹ Results indicated that individuals who report psychometry experiences score significantly higher on measures of ASMR than those who do not, and that both ASMR and synesthesia are associated with tendencies to report anomalous experiences more broadly. Notably, synesthesia was not significantly associated with psychometry specifically, suggesting that different sensory processing differences may underpin different types of anomalous experiences.

The qualitative component of this research employed thematic analysis of open-ended descriptions of psychometry experiences. Five major themes emerged: a flash of imagery; lived feelings and intense emotions; noesis (a sense of knowing without knowing how one knows); and perspective-taking or empathy. These findings suggest that subjective psychometry experiences reflect emotional information that is experienced as distinct from normal consciousness and felt to originate from another person’s perspective.¹ This phenomenological insight reframes psychometry not as a paranormal ability to extract information from objects, but as an emotionally-mediated empathic experience in which the person feels they are accessing another’s emotional or psychological state.

Emotional states and anomalous experiences. Simmonds-Moore has examined the relationship between emotional distress and anomalous perception. In a phenomenological analysis of grief and emotional stress, she and colleagues found that bereavement and emotional turmoil are associated with increased reports of anomalous experiences.⁵ This work suggests that emotional states modulate perceptual openness and may increase the salience of ambiguous stimuli, making them more likely to be interpreted as anomalous or paranormal. The finding has implications for understanding apparition experiences, which often occur in contexts of grief or emotional crisis.

Her research on sleep patterns and personality revealed that sleep characteristics correlate with the frequency and type of subjective anomalous experiences reported.⁴ This suggests that physiological states (particularly those related to sleep and circadian rhythms) interact with personality traits to shape anomalous perception.

Synesthesia and perception of unseen realities. Simmonds-Moore has explored synesthesia as both a neurological phenomenon and a potential window into anomalous perception. Her phenomenological analysis of synesthesia as an exceptional experience examined how synesthetes describe their cross-sensory experiences and what these experiences reveal about consciousness and perception.¹⁴ She has proposed that synesthesia, the automatic, involuntary activation of one sensory modality by stimulation of another, may represent a form of perceptual openness that facilitates the perception of subtle or anomalous information.¹⁵ This work suggests that individuals with atypical sensory integration may have enhanced access to information that others filter out, and that this same perceptual style may underpin both anomalous experiences and creative insight.

ESP and unconscious preference formation. In collaboration with James C. Carpenter and colleagues, Simmonds-Moore has investigated whether ESP contributes to the unconscious formation of preferences, the hypothesis that people may unconsciously select targets or make choices based on psi information without conscious awareness of doing so.²¹ This work extends psi research beyond explicit, conscious detection tasks to examine whether psi operates at an unconscious level to influence behavior and preference. The research also examined models of psi functioning that account for the effects of stable subject dispositions and target assignment procedures.²²

Geomagnetic fields and intentionality. In earlier work, Simmonds-Moore participated in research examining the relationship between geomagnetic fields and human intentionality, specifically investigating whether intentional mental effort influences the hemolysis (rupture) of red blood cells.²³ This research reflects an interest in the physiological correlates of psi and the mechanisms by which mental intention might influence biological systems.

Theoretical and conceptual contributions. Beyond empirical studies, Simmonds-Moore has contributed to the theoretical and conceptual foundations of anomalistic psychology and parapsychology. Her work in the Anomalistic Psychology textbook addressed fundamental issues including cognitive explanations for anomalous experiences, personality and individual differences, methodological issues in psi research, and the scientific status of parapsychology itself.⁶²⁴ She has also engaged with broader questions about the nature of paranormal experiences, the role of gender in paranormal research and belief,¹⁷ and the potential therapeutic and existential significance of anomalous experiences.¹³

Influence and reception

Simmonds-Moore’s work has established her as a leading figure in anomalistic psychology and the psychological study of paranormal experiences. Her collaborative textbook Anomalistic Psychology has become a standard reference in academic psychology programs, providing students and researchers with a comprehensive, evidence-based framework for understanding anomalous experiences without requiring adoption of either paranormal or purely reductionist positions. The textbook’s influence reflects the growing recognition within academic psychology that anomalous experiences warrant serious scientific study and that psychological frameworks can illuminate these phenomena without dismissing them as mere delusion or fraud.

Her research on perceptual biases and paranormal belief has contributed to a more nuanced understanding of how cognitive and perceptual factors shape paranormal belief and the interpretation of anomalous experiences. By demonstrating that paranormal belief reflects systematic differences in perceptual processing rather than simple credulity or irrationality, her work has elevated the quality of discourse around paranormal belief in both academic and popular contexts.

Her recent work on psychometry represents a significant expansion of the empirical base for understanding this phenomenon. By combining quantitative measures of sensory processing differences with qualitative phenomenological analysis, she has provided the most comprehensive empirical investigation of psychometry to date, establishing a model for how other anomalous experiences might be studied using mixed-methods approaches.

Simmonds-Moore’s engagement with contemporary debates in parapsychology, including questions about postmortem survival, the role of gender in paranormal research, and the integration of collaborative and adversarial approaches to anomalous phenomena, has positioned her as a thoughtful voice in discussions about the future direction of parapsychology as a field. Her work exemplifies a commitment to rigorous empirical investigation, theoretical sophistication, and openness to the possibility that anomalous experiences may reveal genuine aspects of human psychology and consciousness that warrant continued scientific attention.