Harry Potter forms basis of latest study

Words such as Muggle and Quidditch have been used in an in-depth eye movement psychological study to find out how people react to unfamiliar language.
The husband and wife team are avid Harry Potter fans which now features in their professional work. Photo: Peter DevlinThe husband and wife team are avid Harry Potter fans which now features in their professional work. Photo: Peter Devlin
The husband and wife team are avid Harry Potter fans which now features in their professional work. Photo: Peter Devlin

Husband and wife behavioural psychology researchers and avid Harry Potter fans, Dr Chris Hand from Glasgow Caledonian University and Dr Joanne Ingram from the University of the West of Scotland, teamed up for a labour of love to produce their latest study.

The research has just been published in the leading American Psychological Association Journal of Experimental Psychology.

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A total of 32 Harry Potter fans and 22 non-fans were used in the experimental eye movement study to capture the public’s responses to words such as Muggle, Hogwarts and Quidditch.

The psychologists, whose research backgrounds are in words and language, discovered that most people can understand these specialist terms if used in the right context.

The study examined the processing of fictional words – specifically those appearing in the Harry Potter book series.

Researchers studied the eye movement behaviour of readers familiar or unfamiliar with the Harry Potter series when encountering fictional words from this series, either in supportive or unsupported contexts.

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Dr Hand explained: “Compared to other surveys this is pretty massive because it takes over an hour to test each participant and then hours to go through the raw data because you are looking at every single eye movement.

“The research is all about Harry Potter, and how fans and non-fans read the materials differently, but store it in their brains differently. Our research has shown that if you put a word in the right context people can process it and understand it.

“If we had started using medical terminology such as epidemiology six or seven months ago, the public might have struggled to understand what it meant but if you say epidemiologists are studying Covid that gives the right context. With the right context everyone can understand these really specialist terms.”

Dr Hand and Dr Ingram, who have been married for 12 years, have studied Harry Potter for years.

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