Richard Wiseman

Prof Richard Wiseman is based at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK, and has gained an international reputation for research into quirky areas of psychology, including deception, humor, luck and the paranormal.

One of Wiseman’s research was about psychic detectives who claim to be able to help the police prevent and solve serious crimes. Prof Wiseman compared three psychic detectives with three students who did not claim to be psychic. All six participants were shown objects that had been involved in one of three crimes, and were asked to describe the nature of the crimes. Formal testing involved them being shown a list of statements, and having to match the statements to the crimes. Results from this formal test revealed that the psychics were no more accurate than the students, and that neither group performed at above chance levels.

In 2001, Prof Richard Wiseman teamed up with the British Association for the Advancement of Science to create a mass participation project exploring the psychology of humor as part of Science Year in the UK. 'LaughLab' was an internet-based experiment billed as 'the scientific search for the world's funniest joke' and received widespread media attention, including the cover story of The New Yorker magazine. Over 350,000 people from 70 countries logged onto a special website, and provided data that was used to explore various aspects of the psychology of humor.

These are just few examples of Professor Wiseman’s work. This psychologist participates in a lot of different and interesting researches.