Richard Wiseman's Blog, page 4

NEW PAPER ON CREATIVITY

I have just co-authored a new research paper suggesting that learning to perform magic tricks makes children more creative.

During the experiment, a group 10 to 11-year-old children completed a creativity test that involved coming up with multiple uses for an everyday object. They were then taught how to perform a simple trick in which they showed someone a cube with different coloured sides, asked the person to secretly choose a colour, and then magically revealed their person’s choice. Finally, they all completed the creativity test a second time. Compared to another group of children who took part in an art lesson, learning the trick significantly boosted the children’s creativity scores.

Magic tricks often involve lateral thinking and we suspect that learning to perform the illusions encouraged children to think outside of the box.  There is a  need to enhance creative thinking from a young age. Learning magic tricks would be a cost effective, practical, and fun way of teachers and parents boosting children’s creativity. Maybe in the future, magic will become part of the school curriculum!

The peer-reviewed work was carried out in collaboration with  Amy Wiles and Professor Caroline Watt (Edinburgh University), and published in the academic journal PeerJ.

You can read the paper for free here, and a general review on magic and education here.

New MAGic BOOK

I am delighted to announce that I have co-authored a new book – David Copperfield’s History of Magic.

It’s written by David Copperfield, David Britland and myself, with photographs by Homer Liwag.

The book presents a personal tour of David’s amazing secret museum of magic in Las Vegas. Containing over 100 full colour photographs, the book takes you on a journey into a clandestine world of psychology, history and magic.  The book is released on October 26th and is now available for pre-order.
USA: Click here
UK: Amazon UK

Good Magic Award

Last year I collaborated with The Good Thinking Society to set up the Good Magic Awards.

Our first award focused on performers who use magic tricks to improve the lives of others, including work with disadvantaged groups, hospital patients, and schools. The judges selected two great winners: Megan Swann (who presents a magic show that promotes environmental issues) and Breathe Magic (who support children with hemiplegia by helping them to learn tricks that improve physical and psychological wellbeing).

This year, the award will provide £2,000 to support a new and innovative project that promotes the art of magic. This might, for example, include developing a live or virtual performance, writing a magic-related book or essay, creating a podcast, devising a new form of illusion or presentation, or undertaking research into the history of magic.

Applicants need to be over 18 years old and currently residing in the UK, and nominations will close at 5pm (GMT) on 20th February 2021.

To enter, please head over to The Good Thinking Society now!

Science magic

A few years ago I produced three videos containing ten magic-based science stunts. I thought that they might help educate and entertain children during lockdown, or indeed anyone with a curious disposition. Here they are…..

The science of Ghosts

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I am delighted to announce that the third issue of Hocus Pocus is out now!

This colourful comic explores magic and mystery, and this time we enter the spooky world of ghosts.

Discover the truth about Britain’s most haunted house, see a Victorian spirit manifest right before your eyes and encounter the ‘Ghost at 19Hz’.

As ever, Jordan Collver, Rik Worth and Owen Watts have done a wonderful job, and I am especially impressed with their optical illusion cover.

You can purchase the issue from PropDog (they ship anywhere in the world) and find out more on the Hocus Pocus website.

Enjoy!

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Hocus Pocus chat

For the past year or so I have been working with illustrator Jordon Colver and writer Rik Worth to produce Hocus Pocus – a comic that celebrates the mind, magic and mystery.

The comic has proved something of a hit, selling in large numbers and attracting lots of lovely reviews (here).

They are presenting their work at a huge comic convention called Thought Bubble this weekend. On Saturday 14th they will be hosting a live Zoom chat between 2:30-3:30pm, presenting a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the comic. I will also be around to contribute the odd nugget of wisdom.

Anyone can join in and it’s free. So please come along and discover everything that you have always wanted to know about comics, illustration, writing, mystery, magic, paranormal stuff, and much much more.

To join, just wait until 2.30pm today and then click here
Meeting ID: 876 9077 8250
Passcode: yw68C7

You will enter the session on mute, but please leave a comment on the message board if you would like to comment or ask a question, and feel free to send us your questions in advance via Twitter!

Magic and Science

I am delighted to launch a new series of videos that use magic to celebrate science. Fab sleight of hand artist Will Houstoun and I produced them, supported by The Royal Society of Chemistry and chemist Dr Suzanne Fergus (University of Hertfordshire). The three videos use sleight of hand techniques to celebrate a different scientist, and do not involve any CGI or camera trickery.

We are excited about this new story telling technique and recently conducted an experiment that showed that it significantly boosted people’s engagement (details here).

I hope that you enjoy them!

How parapsychology changed psychology

I recently co-authored a paper on how a little-known parapsychology journal was years ahead of its time.

Our story starts in 2011, when psychologist Daryl Bem reported several experiments that appeared to support the existence of psychic ability. Soon after, Stuart Ritchie, Chris French and I tried to replicate the studies but obtained null results. Several other academics also criticised Bem’s statistics and procedures. This type of ‘I have evidence for psychic ability – Oh no you don’t’ back and forth has occurred many times over the years. However, this time, something odd happened.

Several researchers noted that the criticisms aimed at Bem’s work also applied to many studies from mainstream psychology. Many of the problems surrounded researchers changing their statistics and hypotheses after they had looked at their data, and so commentators urged researchers to submit a detailed description of their plans prior to running their studies. In 2013, psychologist Chris Chambers played a key role in getting the academic journal Cortex to adopt the procedure (known as a Registered Report), and many other journals quickly followed suit.

However, many academics are unaware that a little-known parapsychology journal – The European Journal of Parapsychology – implemented an early version of this concept in the 1970s. For 17 years, around half of the studies in the paper were registered in advance. If the critics were right, these papers should be less likely to contain problems with their statistics and methods, and so be more likely to report spurious positive results. To find out if this was the case, I recently teamed up with Caroline Watt and Diana Kornbrot to examine the studies. The results were as expected – around 8% of the analyses from the studies that had been registered in advance were positive, compared to around 28% from the other papers. Other academics are now conducting the same sort of analyses in psychology and medicine, and finding the same pattern.

Academics often criticise parapsychology, but this episode is a good example of how the field is sometimes ahead of the game and can help to improve mainstream psychology. 

The full paper describing this work is here.

And Diana is now looking more broadly at openness in science. If you are a researcher with an interest in the area, you can take part in her survey here.

It’s Competition Time!

Psychology at The University of Hertfordshire is turning 50 this year. To help celebrate, we’re holding two competitions, which could see you win Amazon vouchers worth up to £100.  

The first competition involves completing the statement, “Why I love psychology….” in a maximum of 10 words. In the second competition, we are inviting everyone to help shape the field over the next 50 years by completing the statement  ‘In the next 50 years, I hope that psychology …’ using a maximum of 20 words.

There will be 5 winners in each category, so come over to the competition website and send us your entries!

Hocus Pocus Issue 2

[image error]I am delighted to announce the arrival of the second issue of Hocus Pocus!

And this time we have created a comic that communes with the dead!

This issue delves into the strange world of spirit communication! Join Houdini’s chief investigator, Rose Mackenberg, as she uncovers the secrets of the seance room. Travel through time to discover the trickery used by Fox sisters and the Davenport brothers to fool the world. Uncover the scientists and scoundrels behind the strange history of the Ouija Board.

Beautifully illustrated, printed in full colour on heavy card stock, and limited edition.

Illustrated by Jordan Collver, written by Rik Worth and coloured by Owen Watts.

You can get a copy from PropDog here or from Travelling Man here

And the magazine website is here.

Praise for Issue One:

‘An utterly magical read ….. one of the most inventive and gorgeous comics we have read this year.’ – Pipedream Comics