Transliminality, thin boundaries, Unusual Experiences, and temporal lobe lability

Transliminality is a perceptual-personality construct that in this study was measured using the Rasch Revised Transliminality Scale. The aim of the study was to examine the correlations between transliminality and three other measures with which it has previously correlated very highly, namely, Hartmann’s Boundary Questionnaire (the Sumbound measure), the Unusual Experiences scale of the Oxford–Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences, and a measure of temporal lobe lability taken from Persinger’s Personal Philosophy Inventory. It was predicted that these four measures would correlate positively, significantly, and highly with each other, and that factor analysis would yield a single underlying factor, though no prediction was advanced concerning which measures would have the higher factor loadings. The four scales were administered to 1368 participants. Correlation analysis showed that all four variables were significantly, positively and highly correlated with each other, Pearson rs ranging from .56 to .75. The factor analysis showed that, as predicted, there was a single underlying factor, accounting for 74.6% of the variance. It is suggested that the most appropriate representative of the four variables is transliminality: it is the shortest scale, it has been Rasch-scaled, and it is the only variable which has been examined and found to be significantly related to performance on psychophysical threshold tasks using visual and vibro-tactile stimuli.