Psychology in Context at The Open Psychology Research Centre

FCRG Strand Leads Drs Lara Frumkin and Ailsa Strathie are hosting an internal Forensic Cognition Research Group (FCRG) event, exploring two diverse subjects.

Speakers:

Interpreter assisted police interviews - police and interpreter views

Charlotte Gaskell, PhD student, The Open University

The use of interpreters in police interviews has implications for the quality of the evidence obtained from witnesses. The results of a survey designed to gather the views of police and interpreters about what works and what could be improved in interpreter assisted police interviews will be presented, and the implications for applied practice will be explored.

Mind Hacking – How magicians exploit psychological biases and limitations.

Dr Gustav Kuhn, Goldsmiths, University of London

Magicians amaze their audiences by creating illusions that allow you to experience the impossible. In the MAGIC lab, we study magic tricks to gain insights into the nature of these magical experiences, as well as the psychological mechanism that underpin them. In this talk I will provide an overview of some of our research on magic, and illustrate the cognitive limitations and biases that magicians exploit. I will examine work on perceptual and attentional illusions and explore the gaps in our conscious perceptual experience, as well as errors in our beliefs about these experiences. I will discuss work on memory illusions and illustrate how simple suggestions can alter how people remember the past. In the final part, I will examine how magicians covertly influence a person’s choice. Our empirical investigations reveal the ease by which people’s decisions can be influenced and people’s obliviousness towards these influences.

Acknowledgments:

This event is hosted by the Open Psychology Research Centre, within the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at The Open University, and delivered through its strand of research FCRG.