Participants’ ratings of speakers’ charisma on a scale from 1 to 10 (90% CI).

Left: activations in ‘non-Christian’ relative to ‘Christian known for his healing powers’. Results are thresholded at P < 0.05 corrected for multiple comparisons (FDR). The five global maxima are marked by white circles: (A) prefrontal cortex, (B) temporoparietal junction, (C) inferior temporal cortex, (D) temporopolar/orbitofrontal region and (E) cerebellum. Middle: effect size of the three conditions compared to baseline. Right: effect of listening to the praying speakers (y-axis) as a function of subsequent ratings of the speakers' charisma on a scale from 1–10 (x-axis). The black line corresponds to the average of fitted slopes from the individual participants (numbers encircled and coloured). A subject-specific fit was chosen to accommodate for large inter-subject variance in the ratings, e.g. some subjects consistently used high ratings, while others used only low ratings. A one-sample t-test across subject-specific slopes showed a significant effect for all regions except for the cerebellum (P < 0.05).

Participants’ ratings of beliefs on a scale from 1 to 10 (90% CI).

Participants’ ratings of the experience of God’s presence on a scale from 1 to 10 (90% CI).