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Hey guys - here is a video of my final year psychology project in action - you may recognise it from Derren Brown's Tricks of the Mind series a few years back. It was worth approximatel 25% of my degree

Do you think that you would notice if the person you were talking to changes in front of your eyes? You do?

Mind Reader Chris Beard employs two 20 year old males, to see if he can manipulate the perception of random passer-bys, so they don't notice the change.

After being instructed on exactly what to do and say, the two skeptical young men decided to undertake their task. You may be surprised at the results...

As can be seen, all passer-bys were quizzed after the switch, and given a full debriefing with details of the study itself. Although this was done with many more people who also signed disclaimers, both men in this short film signed disclaimers and were happy to have their footage used.

Many hours were spent waiting for people to walk by........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szbq93GW1r8

Enjoy

(Note that the second person begins at 2.54)

Great idea Chris. Shame the audio is not very clear but it's great to see them not noticing a thing.
Do you think you could try it where they change colour as well?

Lord Freddie wrote:Great idea Chris. Shame the audio is not very clear but it's great to see them not noticing a thing.
Do you think you could try it where they change colour as well?

That was what I wa originally going to do. Due to this being part of my final project however, I wanted to increase the overal chances of publication. Instead, I have played about with race, and the overall chances of noticing the change. In a different scenario, Chinese actors were used, yet still only white people were approached. I am currently analysing the data, so we shall soon see if there is a difference!

As usual, it's another product of genius from your amazing mind.

Would be interested in reading more about this. What is the theory behind it? How much of it is influenced by the activity of the test subject (ie, they are focusing on the map, rather than who they are talking to)? Did the test always take the same form (can you tell me where I am) or did you use other/no activities?

Madelon Hoedt wrote:Would be interested in reading more about this. What is the theory behind it? How much of it is influenced by the activity of the test subject (ie, they are focusing on the map, rather than who they are talking to)? Did the test always take the same form (can you tell me where I am) or did you use other/no activities?

Theory is very controversial - some say it is attention based, weheras others say it is lack-of-expectation based. They cross-over very frequently. If somebody expects it, they are generally paying a different kind of attention! This corsses over with the map idea - attention on the map, due to lack of expectation that it is anything out of the ordinary! And yes, it always took the same form of the map idea

When I was studying Psychology at Uni, I volunteered for a similar(ish) study which I found fascinating.

I signed up to take a written aptitude test. When I arrived, there was me, 1 other person sitting the test and an examiner. Around 5mins in, the examiner excused herself for a few minutes. There had been 2 guys walking around Psychology department, who entered a few mins after she left and one of them asked me where the examiner was - I replied that she had to pop out and will probably be back in a few mins. They both thanked me and left. Around 1 minute later, the examiner returned and stated that the test was over. The other person sitting the test next to me stood up and told me to follow him. WTF?!

I was sat down in another room, and interviewed interrogation style (with a tape recorder, etc...) by the other test-sitter about EXACTLY what just happened. I had to describe every single detail about the 2 people, what they said, what they were wearing... I had very little detail to offer.

Turns out I was part of the control group - thankfully! The others taking the experiment were approached by the same to guys, in a very aggressive manner and accused of flirting with one of their girlfriends (amongst other scenarios) - which escalated from there. Needless to say, the theory is you'll remember a lot more about these 2 guys now!



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Heh, I can imagine! On some level, it strikes me as odd that the theory is so controversial, Chris; one would think a large part of the ... phenomenon? could be explained from a biology perspective / survival techniques?

Tee hee. I never get bored of seeing footage of this experiment being done.

Madelon Hoedt wrote:Heh, I can imagine! On some level, it strikes me as odd that the theory is so controversial, Chris; one would think a large part of the ... phenomenon? could be explained from a biology perspective / survival techniques?

Ah, but the controversy is from a cognitive perspective - is it because we are not expecting the change that we do not notice it, or because we are not paying attention to the face?

That is where it is difficult to study - if you tell somebody about the change ahead of time, you not only change their expectation, you also change their focus point of attention. This is also the same the other way around - tell somebody to focus their attention to a specific area and it also shifts their level of expectation.

That is where I have been very clever and have hopefully created a publishable to study that will finally answer (or at least provide a great deal of evidence one way or another) this question

Beardy wrote:Ah, but the controversy is from a cognitive perspective - is it because we are not expecting the change that we do not notice it, or because we are not paying attention to the face?

Can it not be a combination of both, and possibly "other"?

It is academia; you have to ascribe to either one theory and then quarrel incessantly with those who believe the other to be true.

Madelon Hoedt wrote:It is academia; you have to ascribe to either one theory and then quarrel incessantly with those who believe the other to be true.

And thereby get nothing done Sweet! Let's fill out a grant application.

It would be interesting to see if this works with someone the test subject knows.
For example work colleague A asks you to look over some work he's done, and while your looking it over he switches with work colleague B.

It would probably work with me because I'm c*** (not the best) with facial recognition. But what about normal people?

Jean Eugene Roberts wrote:It would be interesting to see if this works with someone the test subject knows.
For example work colleague A asks you to look over some work he's done, and while your looking it over he switches with work colleague B.

It would probably work with me because I'm c*** (not the best) with facial recognition. But what about normal people?

That actually happened in the study that I did! Person A swapped for person B, and the participant knew person B! They just apologised that they isn't realise it was them!