Neuroscientists are studying classic "magic" tricks, like the classic "cups and balls" illusion.
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This story was originally published by Inside Science News Service.
(ISNS) -- Scientists analyzing how magicians Penn & Teller perform one of the oldest known illusions now reveal that some aspects of the magic trick are even more effective at manipulating audiences than the magicians predicted.
These findings not only shed light on basic processes such as cognition, but could help advance the art of magic, researchers suggested.
In recent years, neuroscientists have increasingly been analyzing magicians' performances to gain insights on the human mind.
"We realized that magicians were among the best people at manipulating attention and awareness, far better than scientists," said cognitive neuroscientist Stephen Macknik, director of the laboratory of behavioral neurobiology at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Ariz. "So we've been poaching their techniques, bringing them back to the labs to increase our rate of discovery."
The latest magic trick Macknik and his colleagues investigated is the classic cups and balls illusion. Examples ascribed to ancient Roman conjurers date back to 3 B.C., and some claim it goes back further to ancient Egypt.
The illusion nowadays commonly involves three upside-down cups and three balls, Magicians can make the balls seemingly jump from cup to cup, disappear from one cup and appear in another, turn into other items and so on. (The modern swindler's version is the shell game.)
To learn more about this illusion, the researchers enlisted the aid of the famous duo Penn & Teller. Seven volunteers watched 10-12-second-long video clips of Teller performing the illusion in front of a NOVA scienceNOW TV crew at the duo's theater in Las Vegas.
The balls in the illusion are typically brightly colored, while the cups are usually opaque. Penn & Teller practice a version with three opaque and then three transparent cups.
"It's a great act, and the trick still works even with transparent cups, because they're just that good — people still can't follow all the movements and see how the trick is done," Macknik said.
"I've seen them do this trick for more than 20 years," said vision scientist Flip Phillips at Skidmore College, in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. "The best part of the whole routine is that, despite the fact that they are telling you what they are doing — they're showing you what they're doing — you're still amazed because you just can't fight the deception."
Teller devised this variation while fiddling with an empty water glass and wadded-up paper napkins for balls at a Midwestern diner. He turned the glass upside down and put a paper ball on top, then tilted the glass so that the ball fell into his other hand. The falling ball was so compelling that it drew his own attention away from his other hand, which was deftly and secretly loading a second ball under the glass. Teller found that the sleight happened so quickly he himself did not realize he had loaded the cup. He surmised he missed it because the falling ball captured his attention.
In the experiments, the volunteers reported when they saw balls get removed from, or placed under, cups by pressing buttons. The researchers also used cameras pointed at the eyes of the volunteers to track their gazes.
The researchers found that while the falling ball did draw audience attention, other aspects of the trick were actually stronger at making the illusion work. For instance, audiences were fooled more often when the magician attempted to drop a ball that was stuck to a cup.
"A lot of times the intuitions we have about the way things work aren't the way things work," said Phillips, who did not take part in this research. "This isn't to put down Teller — Teller's intuition is good. There is research we did on a famous sleight of hand known as the French drop where Teller's intuition on how to sell the trick is perfectly correct."
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12 Comments
Add CommentI don't find anything surprising about this article. Social cues are a tool but they essentially are a subset of misdirection.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm also unsurprised by the commentor who immediately used this article to push their personal political agenda, as if any other political party is different. Talk about classic misdirection.
Trolls are neither magical nor very clever, it would seem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNono, you must be mistaken, the psych ward is on the other side of the internet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo, the real magic is how people who are clearly brain dead give the illusion of speech.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt would indeed be interesting to study con artists, and whether politicians have learned from their tricks. So I'm with littleredtop; and commenters yammering "troll" are just part of the illusion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSee here:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/06/back-obama-the-cool-self-aware-irony-drenched-con-artist.html
And if links don't come through, Google:
"con man" "trick us" Obama
Sour grapes. Get over it. When Bush was elected I felt the same way but I didn't troll the internet euining discussions on an interesting topic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry, no, this is about physical manipulation of objects to entertain a willing audience. Seizing the comment section and twisting the thesis of the article to justify preaching and hyperbole is trolling.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Seven volunteers watched 10-12-second-long video clips..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt would be nice if these words were linked to this clip having been posted somewhere, such as YouTube.
Can't resist spreading your hate at any opportunity, can you,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGot your tin hat on?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWTF are you talking about - there was no mention of politics until you brought it up. Just because he used Penn and Teller doesn't mean he's pushing their politics.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe three-cup trick is amazingly accurately picked out by a feline in a U-tube video...every time. I may be wrong about this, but I think the eyes of the cat are pretty relaxed and stable in it's gaze. So it makes me think it's a lower-brain function connected to the vision center.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen I play the Lumosity spatial relation games, seeing globally (having had TBI's)out to the edges of the frames, I have to focus on one area too long to take in the whole frame. Guts would tell one thing and looking at the whole field is like a distraction-- as the placement of objects or digits increase in number. Peripheral focus is entailed in the process of going to the edges of the frames. So I wonder if exercises in expanding peripheral vision may expand one's accuracy in choosing the cup with the ball beneath it.