The Cannon - December 2011 - Fort Pitt Grammar School

THE CANNONPage 5GIFTED AND TALENTED CONFERENCEOn Friday the 11 th November gifted and talentedstudents from years 10 and 11 went on a trip to Londonto a conference. As we were walking through LeicesterSquare we could see people getting ready for theremembrance service later that day.We arrived at the conference and found that there weremany other schools in the Odeon cinema. The peoplelecturing us were a forensic psychologist and a seniorlecturer in Psychology. The topics of discussion were;are we born to kill? It’s a man’s world; What if we livedforever? And, Forensic Psychology, ‘the real Cracker’.‘Living forever’ told us that it is likely that, very soon, wewill be living for about 400 years. ‘Are we born to kill’focused on the debate of are some of us born killers?And what causes this? We looked into DNA evidence todo with the matter and discussed this. ‘ForensicPsychology, ‘the real Cracker’’ was about psychology ontelevision and how it differs from forensic psychology inreal life; and ‘It’s a man’s world’ was discussing feminismand how women were sexualised in the mediathroughout the years. We enjoyed the trip to LeicesterSquare, and learned a lot from the experience.Charlotte Donald and Mary GreenPSYCHOLOGY CONFERENCEOn Friday 25 th November Fort Pitt’s A Level Psychologystudents left for a Psychology Conference in London entitled‘Science and Pseudoscience’, we were all apprehensive ofwhat to expect and it certainly exceeded our expectations.The day begun with a Psychology song on the coach and onarrival at the Friends Meeting House we all had a break toexplore Euston Station before the conference. After arrivingback we found our seats, in the middle near the front whichallowed us to experience the whole day up close. We had abrief introduction to the conference and then the firstspeaker was Phil Banyard, a professor at Nottingham TrentUniversity whom taught us to be sceptical about everythingand anything including media health claims, he showed useight statements which were either true or false and the onlyone that was proven true with evidence is that cows likelistening to the song ‘Perfect Day’!The next speaker was Richard Wiseman, previously aprofessional magician and now one of the UK’s most wellknown Psychologists, having been on Richard and Judy andthe American equivalent. He used magic tricks and eventaught us one which we will probably all be practicing for thenext month! He taught us all about his experiment on whysome people are lucky and others unlucky which was highlyinteresting and certainly changed my perspective on events.carrying out Psychological research using real lifeexamples.It was then time for lunch and we all scattered aroundEuston Station, many of us searching for a McDonaldswhich we eventually figured wasn’t even there! After eating,we all found each other back at the conference and awaitedRichard Wiseman’s second presentation on illusions whichtaught us all about how the mind actually views imagesinitially whilst making us laugh too. He also showed us anexperiment which he arranged to be carried out ontelevision where a group of people believed that if theymeditated they could build a protective field aroundthemselves and that is why they could walk on coals of firesafely, Richard Wiseman proved this to be incorrect andscience really did overcome the paranormal.Mike Cardwell, another author of Psychology textbookspresented us with Nice Guys Finish Last and the evidencefor and against it which proved very interesting andinformative. He also taught us more about conformity andobedience which expanded on our knowledge from what wehad learnt at school.Finally, it was the turn of Andrew Newton, a hypnotist ofwhom we were all unsure of what to expect but as soon ashe started we were amazed, astonished and crying withtears of laughter. He showed us the power of suggestionand fooled us with a trick which I have since used and foundvery effective! He then questioned us on our views of whathypnotism is and then took volunteers. At first he did simpleimagination exercises in which he spoke to the volunteers,giving them visual imagery in their heads for example onehand being weighed down and the other being attached to aballoon, we soon found that the volunteers arms had movedaccording to what he had said. This was not the full extentof Andrew Newton’s demonstration for then he put thevolunteers into a trance-like state in which if he said sleepthey actually appeared as if they were asleep and he couldget them stuck in a position just by talking to them. He evensuggested that he was invisible and the volunteers actuallycould not see him, even though we could! At the end he hadto bring all of the volunteers out of the hypnotism so theywere exactly how they were before and they couldremember what had happened to them but felt like they hadno control of their actions, we also got to ask questions andfound out more about hypnotism.We then left for school and encountered a mass of trafficthroughout the journey back, however we were all ravingabout how amazing the hypnotism and the otherpresentations were, the whole conference made us lovePsychology more seeing it first hand and we would definitelylove to go again.Thank you to Miss Hillman and Mrs Tompson for theopportunity, it was definitely worth it!Lucy Ann SmithCara Flanagan, an author of many Psychology textbooksthen carried out a presentation on Good Science and BadScience, an informative presentation on the ethics of