Summary:
Watch the video and think about these questions:
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Marina Gulline: Richard, you started your working life as a magician.
What made you interested in magic?
Dr Richard Wiseman: The real thing that made me interested in magic was a magician coming to my school
when I was about eight and showing some tricks I thought were incredible.
And then I was doing a project on chess and so I had to go to my local library and find out something about
chess and I was given incorrect directions, so I was actually directed to the magic section.
So, by chance picked up this book on magic, realised that lots of the tricks I'd seen the magician do were
in the book and they were really interesting.
So the bug bit and that was me for the next sort of ten years.
I pretty much devoted my life to magic.
Summary:
Listen to Richard describe the work of psychologists and consider:
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Marina Gulline: You have a PhD in psychology, what do psychologists do?
Dr Richard Wiseman: Different sorts of psychologists do different things.
So, some are educational psychologists that will help out kids who want to help with learning.
Others are clinical psychologists you might see if you don't feel so good about yourself.
Then there are research psychologists that look at the brain and might look at perception and so on.
And I'm a social psychologist, so I'm fascinated in the way in which we interact with one another, the things
that make us laugh, why we find someone attractive for example, all these sorts of different things fall under
the remit of social psychology.
But the one thing I specialise in is the psychology of deception, how we fool one another and part of that
is because I'm a magician and also because I'm interested in the psychology of lying.
Summary:
Watch the video and think about:
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Marina Gulline: What's the connection?
Dr Richard Wiseman: There are a lot of parallels between magicians and psychologists.
Both of them are fascinated with how the human mind works.
Magicians because they have to fool that mind and it's really tricky, it's not easy doing magic.
You're up against people who are very good observers who know you're going to fool them and still you have
to get away with it almost every single time.
Psychologists are fascinated with how the mind works because it is such an interesting topic and also because they want to help people.
If you understand how the mind works then when things go wrong then you can step in and help.
So, in a way there's big parallels or be it they're interested for very different reasons.
Summary:
Watch as Richard demonstrates a magic trick and consider:
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Marina Gulline: Is there any way you could demonstrate that?
Dr Richard Wiseman: We can talk about the psychology of magic.
If I show you the very first thing.
I don't, actually this is a, you'll have to tell me now.
Marina: It's a fifty cent coin.
Richard: Fifty cent coin which are very rare apparently because if you roll them like this they completely disappear.
It's over here and this is the very first piece of slight of hand you learn as a magician and what you're
doing is simply pretending to take the coin but actually it's left over here.
So, if you do want to learn this, you spend about two weeks of your life dropping a coin without moving
your hand and then another two weeks taking a coin that's not actually there and it's not the most interesting month of your life.
But when you put it together you get that magical moment making a coin disappear.
Now, what's interesting is that even though this is such a basic piece of slight of hand it illustrates a lot about psychology.
So, as a magician I need to get you to look at the hand that doesn't hold the coin.
But I can't ask you to do that.
I can't say I want you to look here now because you'd get very suspicious and look elsewhere.
So, I have to exploit the natural signals that we used to guide our attention and one of them is where I'm looking.
So, I'm looking here, so you're looking there and now I'm looking over here, so you're looking over here.
So, even though you now know where the coin actually is, you still find it very difficult not to look where I'm looking.
And you can show how affective that is if I look where the coin is rather than where I want you to look.
You can see it's not such a good trick.
It's just a bit surreal.
So, a very simple idea of how you can unpack some of the psychology behind slight of hand.
Summary:
Watch as Richard demonstrates what we can learn about psychology from magic and consider:
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Marina Gulline: What did you learn about psychology from being a magician?
Dr Richard Wiseman: Well, you learn a great deal about psychology.
We can try something here.
If you make your mind a blank and name the first playing card that comes into your mind.
Marina: Ace of clubs.
Richard: That's incredible.
So, you learn to lie and if you want to hold onto one of these cards for me.
Any card you like.
Marina: Any card?
Richard: Yeah, That's great.
Have a look at it, remember it, commit it to memory.
Got it?
Marina: Remembered.
Richard: Okay, return it over here, OK excellent.
So, it's my job to try and find your card, so concentrate on your card for me.
Okay, don't tell me whether your card is a black card or a red card, okay, don't give me any signals at all, okay.
What's your card?
Marina: Seven of clubs.
Richard: Like this card okay.
Marina: Amazing.
Richard: So, this is the world's simplest card trick but it does demonstrate how we make assumptions all of the time.
So, if you want to do it, you spend a few moments with the deck and you make certain that half of them are
black over here and all the red cards are down here and then when I ask you to choose a card and we can do
this again actually I just fan the top half, so if you'd like to choose a card.
Marina: Another one?
Richard: Yeah. The one thing I know about that card is that it will be a black card.
Marina: It is indeed.
Richard: When I have you return it to the deck like this, I now know you're placing it into a red segment, like that so it does rather stand out.
And you have to remember to shuffle cards like that and put them down after you finish the trick.
So, if anyone later thinks hold on a second maybe they're all set up they'll go back to the deck and they're all mixed up.
So, it just really how we make assumptions all of the time and how very simple assumptions can trip us up.
I think that's the real lesson from magic.
Summary:
As you watch the video, consider the following questions:
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Marina Gulline: Why do people believe things that they can't prove?
Dr Richard Wiseman: I think that when it comes to belief, often we're really good at believing what we want to believe.
And there's lots of examples of that, if you ask people 'Do you have an above average sense of humour?'
Ninety-five percent of people will go 'Yes, I've got an above average sense of humour'.
It can't be true of everyone.
Are you an above average driver?
'Oh, yes definitely' for most people.
And it's the same when it comes to something like the paranormal.
If people want to believe in life after death for obvious reasons because it makes them feel good about
themselves or a loved one that has recently died is still around essentially.
Then when they go to a medium or physic they might not be as critical as perhaps they should be because
they want to believe that what they're hearing is true.
And some of my research looks at the paranormal and lots of times it's driven the evidence that people present me with is driven by their belief.
The fact that they want these things to be true, so they're not as critical as they should be.
And hopefully psychology teaches you to be a good, critical thinker to look at the evidence that's in front
of you rather than being driven by your beliefs.
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