An uncanny knack of knowing when to pack an extra woolly without seeing the weather forecast might be down to more than chance, a North-East psychologist believes.
For one in four of us might have a special gift for predicting the twists and turns of chaotic systems like the weather, claims Professor Richard Heath, of Sunderland University's Business School.
His latest research had volunteers being shown two sets of temperature figures for the previous eight days and asked to predict the results for the next four days. One set of figures was similar to real weather patterns, while the other set was random.
Built-in controls ensured they couldn't cheat.
A quarter of those involved correctly predicted for the next two days, amazing Prof Heath, whose work has earned recognition by the New Scientist.
Now he is hoping to continue his work on Wearside to find out whether the theory could be applied to decide whether some people might be better at predicting how to make their fortune in the financial markets, or to help managers chose suitable employees.
"The results were quite unbelievable. We still have some work to do to understand what is going on in these people's heads but the results are very promising," said Professor Heath.
"We are not talking about people being psychic. But if someone was to say that people can't predict the future I would say I think they can."
He added: "In the Sunderland Business School I am hoping to continue it to study the implications for the money market and investment divisions. It might be that some people have more intuition for the markets.
He added: "I don't think it's going to help us predict things like the lottery or the racing results."
