
This talk was recorded at the Royal Institution on 22th of April 2024 and watching it you can join Chris French, psychologist and expert on all things paranormal, as he reveals the cardinal truths behind everything from ghostly encounters and alien abductions, to UFO sightings and near-death experiences. By employing rigorous scientific methods, Chris French will embark on a search for the truth behind these mystical occurrences.
Chris' intellectual journey carries us through the debunking of extrasensory perception (ESP), endeavours to communicate with the departed, and even accounts of alien abductions, among other curious occurrences. These phenomena also offer a profound insight into the intricacies of human cognition and consciousness, and should be systematically studied accordingly.
The lecture chapters are the following:
- 00:00 Introduction
- 01:29 What is anomalistic psychology?
- 03:33 Testing paranormal claims: baby psychic
- 10:40 Testing paranormal claims: dream detective
- 21:02 Testing paranormal claims: sensing the future
- 24:58 The replication problem in psychology
- 27:59 Why study paranormal psychology?
- 29:25 Demo: The unreliability of memory
- 32:20 Inattentional blindness of witnesses
- 37:44 Spoon bending and memory conformity
- 42:59 How false memories can be implanted
- 48:19 Alien experiences, sleep paralysis and hypnosis
- 54:28 Top down processing and pareidolia