TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2011//
TI  - More dead than dead: perceptions of persons in the persistent vegetative state
JO  - Cognition
A1  - Gray, Kurt
A1  - Knickman, T. Anne
A1  - Wegner, Daniel M.
SP  - 275
EP  - 280
VL  - 121
IS  - 2
N2  - 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.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0010-0277
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2011.06.014
ID  - ref1
ER  -