The Other Side of Magic: The Psychology ...
Document type :
Article dans une revue scientifique
DOI :
PMID :
Permalink :
Title :
The Other Side of Magic: The Psychology of Perceiving Hidden Things
Author(s) :
Ekroll, Vebjørn [Auteur]
Sayim, Bilge [Auteur]
Laboratoire Sciences Cognitives et Sciences Affectives - UMR 9193 [SCALab]
Wagemans, Johan [Auteur]
Sayim, Bilge [Auteur]
Laboratoire Sciences Cognitives et Sciences Affectives - UMR 9193 [SCALab]
Wagemans, Johan [Auteur]
Journal title :
Perspectives on Psychological Science
Abbreviated title :
Perspect Psychol Sci
Volume number :
12
Pages :
91-106
Publication date :
2017-01-01
ISSN :
1745-6916
HAL domain(s) :
Sciences cognitives
English abstract : [en]
When magicians perform spectacles that seem to defy the laws of nature, they do so by manipulating psychological reality. Hence, the principles underlying the art of conjuring are potentially of interest to psychological ...
Show more >When magicians perform spectacles that seem to defy the laws of nature, they do so by manipulating psychological reality. Hence, the principles underlying the art of conjuring are potentially of interest to psychological science. Here, we argue that perceptual and cognitive principles governing how humans experience hidden things and reason about them play a central role in many magic tricks. Different from tricks based on many other forms of misdirection, which require considerable skill on the part of the magician, many elements of these tricks are essentially self-working because they rely on automatic perceptual and cognitive processes. Since these processes are not directly observable, even experienced magicians may be oblivious to their central role in creating strong magical experiences and tricks that are almost impossible to debunk, even after repeated presentations. We delineate how insights from perceptual psychology provide a framework for understanding why these tricks work so well. Conversely, we argue that studying magic tricks that work much better than one intuitively would believe provides a promising heuristic for charting unexplored aspects of perception and cognition.Show less >
Show more >When magicians perform spectacles that seem to defy the laws of nature, they do so by manipulating psychological reality. Hence, the principles underlying the art of conjuring are potentially of interest to psychological science. Here, we argue that perceptual and cognitive principles governing how humans experience hidden things and reason about them play a central role in many magic tricks. Different from tricks based on many other forms of misdirection, which require considerable skill on the part of the magician, many elements of these tricks are essentially self-working because they rely on automatic perceptual and cognitive processes. Since these processes are not directly observable, even experienced magicians may be oblivious to their central role in creating strong magical experiences and tricks that are almost impossible to debunk, even after repeated presentations. We delineate how insights from perceptual psychology provide a framework for understanding why these tricks work so well. Conversely, we argue that studying magic tricks that work much better than one intuitively would believe provides a promising heuristic for charting unexplored aspects of perception and cognition.Show less >
Language :
Anglais
Audience :
Non spécifiée
Administrative institution(s) :
Université de Lille
CNRS
CHU Lille
CNRS
CHU Lille
Research team(s) :
Équipe Action, Vision et Apprentissage (AVA)
Submission date :
2019-02-13T14:18:03Z
2019-11-12T07:02:53Z
2019-11-12T07:02:53Z