I first met Richard Wiseman at a guest lecture series at the University of London where he revealed the hidden secrets of magic tricks. He performed a card trick that bemused everyone and left us wondering how on earth he did it. Seconds later, the same trick, and on asking us all to focus on his right-hand helped us realise the limitations of our visual system and the reason why we fall for card tricks over and over again.

Strange area of specialism for a psychologist I know, and in his recent book called “Quirkology”, he pays homage to the small band of dedicated academics who have used scientific methods to study quirky human behaviour. Here are two of our favourite studies.

In 1998 psychologists from the University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands, asked half a group of volunteers to carry out a simple mental exercise that involved imagining the mindset of a typical university professor. The other half imagined a football hooligan. All then had to answer some general knowledge questions. The professor group got 60% of the questions right, while the hooligan group got only 46%.

Colleagues from New York University asked their volunteers to do a mental task involving words relating to old age, such as “grey”, “wrinkled” and “bingo”. A second group were shown words unrelated to old age. The researchers then said the experiment was over, and secretly recorded the time each participant took to walk down the long hallway to the exit. Those with old age on their mind took significantly longer to walk down the corridor.

Thus showing that a little bit of mental priming can have significant effects of both physical and mental performance.

To read more Buy Quirkology Now

Michael