Author: Steve Cantwell
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How you are asked about your past can change your memory of it
Police, prosecution lawyers and defence attorneys all have an interest in questioning witnesses to crimes. That shouldn’t be a problem should it? In an ideal world, no. But in an ideal world they wouldn’t be able to alter our memories with the deliberately biased wording of their questions. This is not an ideal world though…
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When we tell an anecdote, it changes our memory of the event
Our memories are not fixed. The memory we have of any event does have, as its basis, some factual details which happened to get lodged in our brains. However, it also consists of a lot of gaps. We don’t usually notice the gaps because they are unconsciously filled in. To us it feels like a…
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What we perceive is a mixture of what our senses receive and what our brains expect.
What we perceive is a mixture of what our senses receive and what our brains expect In day to day life, we do not perceive an exact replica of the world outside. Instead, our expectations colour what our senses are telling us; what we finally perceive is a blend of reality and expectation. Imagine you…
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Repetition Creates Belief
Repeating a lie makes it true. That statement is, of course, patently false; repetition cannot stop a lie from being a lie. But it can make people believe the lie. This is how… If a statement is repeated it creates a sense of familiarity in the person who hears or reads it for the second,…
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Medicine should taste bad
Research has shown that, because we think medicine tastes bad, horrible medicine can work better than nice medicine! There is a very simple reason why medicine should taste bad, and it is a word which generally gets a bad rap: placebo. A placebo effect is where our brains fool us into feeling something that isn’t…
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Fake News
How Does Fake News Work? What is Fake News? I don’t recall hearing the term “Fake News” before a year or so ago, but now it is everywhere. Donald Trump makes many claims that journalists are inventing fake news against him, whilst his detractors accuse him of propagating fake news himself. So what is fake…
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Value for Money
Not long ago, I was out in London and developed a headache. When it didn’t go away of its own accord I popped into a chemist’s to get some tablets. Of course, there was a choice. I could go for one of several well known expensive brands or I could go for the chemist’s “own…
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You probably think you have above average intelligence.
You probably think you have above average intelligence. I would agree with you, since you are reading my blog. It stands to reason that 50% of the population has above average intelligence, and 50% are below average. However, a study by Heck, Simons and Chabris has shown that 65% of Americans consider their intelligence to…