Gustav Kuhn, from the Department of Psychology at Durham University, and Alym Amlani, a recent graduate of the Cognitive Systems Program at the University of British Columbia, are not onlyscientists. In their spare time they practiceMagic. And now they have decided to analyze the main tricks that illusionists use to explainhow our brain perceives the world around us. Their conclusions are published in the digital edition of the magazineTrends in Cognitive Sciences.
Imagine someone making an object disappear or successfully predicting what you’re going to do next. These tricks seem like they defy the laws of physics and logic, but are actually created bycombination of skill and a deep understanding of human psychology“Kuhn notes.
A clear example isthe illusion of the disappearing ball. In this trick, the magician throws a red ball in the air twice and on the third toss he holds the ball in the palm of his hand. However, most viewers claim to have seen how he threw the ball three times into the air and, on the last pitch, it vanished. According to Kuhn, this happens because our visual brain anticipates, and our minds tend tofill in the gaps. “Expectations alter perception,” says Kuhn. In fact, by measuring the real movements of the observers’ eyes, scientists have verified that most people look at the magician’s face, and the movements of his head and his gaze, which are what make us believe that there is a third ball in the air.
Another key factor is theattention. During a magic show, illusionists often make objects “disappear” that are actually only placed elsewhere or thrown on the ground without the audience noticing. The magicians achieve this by channeling all the concentration of the spectators towards a certain area, while in the surrounding close environment where a“blindness from inattention”. This phenomenon shows that although our visual system perceives everything that happens, the only information that reaches our conscious brain is that which “selects” our attention.
Video “The illusion of the vanishing ball”
