Questioning Style and Memory

Wednesday, 1st October 2014 – “Questioning Style and Memory”. Dr Joyce Humphries, from Edge Hill University Psychology Department, returned to talk about the findings from the study earlier this year in which quite a number of our members participated.

It was fascinating to hear the background to the study, and Joyce took us through a potted history of academic studies done to investigate the effect of cross-examination styles on whether witnesses changed their testimony between their first account and their performance in court. Most such studies had focused on the reliability of young people’s testimony, and the project at Edge Hill was to see if there was any difference between younger and older people in their propensity to change their statements under cross-examination.

Readers may be relieved to know that the results suggested there was no significant difference in this respect; younger witnesses were just as likely to change their minds as older people under cross-examination (irrespective of whether their first statements were accurate or inaccurate).

Perception

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 – “Perception” by Sylvia Dillon: Making sense of what we see – an introduction to Visual Perception and the neuro-physiological processes whereby a person becomes aware and interprets external stimuli.

Sylvia talked about how photons of light are processed – at first by the eye, then the brain, then how the individual perceives the world they live in. Covering physics, biology and psychology, she gave examples showing how perception is an active process and how early life experience, especially as a toddler influences the development of perception.

Summer’s here!

and we’re having a rest!

---

The next Science Group meeting is on
3rd September 2014, when Sylvia Dillon
will be talking about Perception.

 

Enjoy the break.

BBC 2: “Horizon: Is seeing believing?”

An interesting programme to be shown tonight, 18 October at 9pm, on BBC Two, about the science of optical illusions and how the brain interprets visual information.

Optical illusions are more than just a bit of fun. Scientist Beau Lotto is finding out what tricking the brain reveals about how our minds work. He explains his findings using five optical illusions on the BBC Magazine website.

Consciousness

Tuesday, 1st June: Dr Stephen Doyle gave us an entertaining and fascinating talk in 2009 about laser eye surgery. He returned on Tuesday 1st June to give another very well received talk entitled “Consciousness – How are we here?” based on a Philosophy of Mind course he attended at Oxford University. The quality of his visuals and his engaging manner made the subject come alive.

For those particularly interested in the topic, he recommends the following reading: “The feeling of what Happens” – Antonio Damasio “The Man who mistook his wife for a hat etc” – Oliver Sacks “Deep Simplicity” – John Gribbin

Stephen Doyle had some problems running his “Slime Mould Video”.  Below you can see what you missed!