The Psychology of Cognitive Illusions—or why the mind is tricked
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Description
Explore what cognitive illusions reveal about the psychology of the human mind; not just perception but also memory and our ability to mentally travel in time to revisit our past experiences and reflect upon them, and explore places we have yet to visit and imagine what they will be like.
Magic effects also illuminate some important things about Theory of Mind, our ability to think about what others might be thinking, both on the part of the audience and on the part of the magician.
Both mental time travel and theory of mind are constrained by egocentric bias, our tendency to overvalue the present self over other selves and other times.
For further information please visit The Captured Thought
Speaker Bios
Professor Clayton is the Professor of Comparative Cognition and a University Teaching Officer in the Department of Psychology at Cambridge University, and a Fellow of Clare College. Her expertise as a scientist lies in the contemporary study of how animals and children think.
Clive Wilkins is a fine art painter who has exhibited widely. He is involved in an arts/science collaboration with Professor Clayton where they are exploring the links between their disciplines.