The Psychology of Cognitive Illusions – or why the mind is tricked

Professor Clayton and Professor Wilkins from the Department of Psychology (University of Cambridge) will explore what cognitive illusions reveal about the psychology of the human mind; not just perception but also memory and the ability to mentally travel in time, to revisit our past experiences and reflect upon them, and to explore places we have yet to visit. Magic effects also illuminate some important things about Theory of Mind.

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.