Something Unknown

This film could be interesting. Or, then again, it could be crap.



The full title of the film Something Unknown is Doing We Don't Know What comes from a quote by Sir Arthur Eddington referring to the the Uncertainty Principle in quantum physics. The film is about the science behind psychic phenomena.

Happy memories

Some initial results from Prof Wiseman's happiness experiment were announced yesterday. It seems that on average we, as a nation, were about 7% more cheerful at the end of last week compared to the beginning of the week. So there. This was determined by way of a couple of polls undertaken at the start and end of the week. Of course, it's not possible to determine how much, if any, of this increase in the nation's happiness might be attributed to the science of happiness experiment.

Participants in the study were assigned to one of five conditions. Four of these groups were asked to spend a few moments each day engaged in an exercise that previous research had indicated might influence feelings of happiness. One group was asked to use those moments to focus on expressing gratitude for one thing in their lives (this is the group I was assigned to) while a second group spent the time simply smiling. A third group was asked to carry out an act of kindness and the fourth group was instructed to recall a pleasant event from the day before. The remaining participants were in a 'control' group in which they were asked to just think about the previous day's events.

More than 26,000 people took part and it would seem that reported levels of happiness in all groups, including the control group, increased over the course of the week. So everyone's a winner! The biggest increase was seen in the group asked to recall a pleasant event from the day before. They showed a 15% rise in reported happiness over and above the folks in the control condition.

The difficulty is that even if these kinds of exercises do have an impact upon perceived happiness, and the initial results from this study seem to suggest they do, then the effects are likely to be rather transient and so many other things will have a far greater impact on our how we feel on a particular day. And are we dealing with underlying 'happiness' or whether we're in a good mood?

Still hats off to Richard for attempting such an ambitious project!

Happy now?

Compared to this time last week, are you more or less happy than you were? It's hard to tell isn't it? Unless, of course, you've taken part in a scientific experiment to measure just how happy you are. Well, I have. And I'm, er, still not sure if I'm any happier or not. I may have a better idea on Wednesday when some initial results from the study are to be announced.

Did you take part? Do you feel any happier?

The study was being conducted by Professor Richard Wiseman, Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire. I know Richard well having worked as his Research Assistant a little over ten years ago and I have always been amazed at the way his research captures the public's imagination. This particular project is linked to his latest book 59 Seconds, which is "a triumph of scientifically proven advice over misleading myths of self-help" (not my words, the words of Derren Brown).

My copy of the book arrived from Amazon this morning. I'll let you know if it's as good as Derren thinks it is.

Joy to the World

How are you feeling this Monday morning? However you're feeling, my old friend Prof Richard Wiseman is up to his old tricks again and conducting an experiment for us all to take part in. This time he's trying to make the world a happier place. No he's not campaigning for all tapes of The Vicar of Dibley to be burned (though there's an idea...). He is simply wanting as many people as possible to take part in a week long happiness project at www.scienceofhappiness.co.uk.

It will take less than a minute a day to take part and, who knows, this time next week you may be as happy as, or even happier than, Larry.

More weird science

The book on anomalous experiences I mentioned in an earlier post will hopefully be published later this year or early next year. In the meantime I thought I'd draw your attention to a book editted by a former colleague of mine, and himself a contributor to the Anomalous Experiences book, Dr Craig Murray.

This book has the rather wordy title of Psychological Scientific Perspectives on Out of Body and Near Death Experiences and is published by Nova. More details can be found here. With chapters written by the leading researchers on OBEs and NDEs, it looks set to become a leading text dealing with these unusual, though not uncommon, experiences. Perhaps these experiences tell us something about consciousness, how our brains construct conscious experience, or even shed light on what happens after we die!

Weird science

Today I finally submitted the manuscript for an edited book called Anomalous Experiences. It's a collection of papers that were originally presented at a conference called Developing Perspectives on Anomalous Experience in June 2005, and covers research on unusual experiences ranging from out-of-body experiences, alien abduction experiences, haunting experiences, and ESP. There were plenty of times over the last three years that it looked likely that it would never happen so I'm very pleased that it's finally been done. It's due to be published next year.

Donating my brain to science

Last week I was a subject in a psychology experiment. To be more precise I was actually a participant. Whereas in the old days I would have been labelled as a 'subject', these days we are participants in such things. Anyway, the procedure I was subjected to included filling in a cluster of personality questionnaires. Questions ranged from how often I trusted my hunches or instincts (I've got a feeling I answered that one wrongly) to whether I found it hard to make decisions (I left that one blank).

Following the questionnaires were a series of tasks. In one of these I had to arrange small wooden coloured blocks to match a pattern shown to me by the experimenter.

These were simple geometric shapes but the task for some reason reminded me of the joke in which a psychologist is showing one of his patients a series of Rorschach inkblots. "What do you see in this picture?" the psychologist asks as the first inkblot is shown. The patient hesitates for a moment before a replying "a man and woman having sex".


"And in this picture...?" the psychologist asks as he displays the second inkblot.

"A man and a woman having sex" the patient replies.

"And in this one?"

"A man and a woman having sex" comes the reply.

"I think you are preoccupied with sex" concludes the psychologist.

"I'm preoccupied with sex?" replies the patient, "you're the one with all the dirty pictures!".

Okay, I didn't say it was a funny joke. Sadly, the psychologist testing me didn't have any dirty pictures. At least none that he was showing me.