Research Article–The Science of Magic: How Magicians Manipulate Our Minds

Kelsey Holland

Professor White

Idea Development

May 5, 2012

The Science of Magic: How Magicians Manipulate Our Minds

Have you ever wondered how magicians work their magic?  Most humans are easily fooled by magicians and fascinated by magic tricks that appear to defy the working laws of science and logic.  Magicians have been tricking and manipulating the human mind for years, and most of us do not question their tactics.  But how do they do it?  Magicians use a variety of techniques such as misdirection, illusions, and forcing of ideas to manipulate audiences during performances.

During his TED presentation Marco Tempest says, “Magic is deception.  But it is a deception that we enjoy…It’s fun to be fooled.”¹   Most of us do not know how a magician tricks us, but we still enjoy it.  Recently, psychologists and neuroscientists have begun researching how magicians manipulate our minds; however, scientific research is still in early stages.  Psychologist Ron Rensink says, “The degree to which a magician can control someone’s minds tends to be far greater than anything we come up with in the lab” (qtd. in Powell).

Gustav Kuhn, a psychologist at the University of Durham, breaks this “science of magic” into three categories:  misdirection, illusion, and forcing (qtd. in Powerll).  Misdirection involves distracting the audience’s attention away from the magician’s actual deceptive tactics; Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris, psychologists at the University of Illinois, demonstrated an example of misdirection in 1999 when the pair exhibited the human phenomenon of “inattention blindness” (Powerll).  When given a task, individuals failed to notice other aspects that did not directly impact the task at hand—in the case of Simons and Chabris people were instructed to count basketball passes and failed to observe a man in a gorilla suit who walked directly across the scene: ²

 Simons and Chabris's "inattention blindness" experiment, 1999

In addition to Simons and Chabris, Gustav Kuhn has also observed misdirection.  Diverting an audience’s attention is key for magicians— Kuhn has especially stressed the importance of controlling an audience member’s eye movement and focal attention.  Magicians have learned that the easiest way to control an audience’s attention is to manage their own eye motions because the audience will follow the focus of the magician.  The individuals in the audience hope that, by watching the eye movement of the magician, they will uncover the trick behind an illusion (Macknik et al. 872-873).  Another easy way for magicians to divert attention is through laughter.  Humor often distracts the audience’s attention away from the physical motions of the magician; therefore, when an audience is laughing is the ideal moment for a magician to make a deceptive move (Powerll).  In addition, Devin Powerll also discusses how the human mind has tendencies that are often exploited by magicians:

“The trick also relies on another glitch in the visual system.  Information captured by the retina takes about 100 milliseconds to reach the brain.  To compensate for this lag, the brain predicts what the world will look like in the near future and acts on this prediction rather than the real information at its disposal.  This is useful in real-world situations such as driving a car, but it also gives magicians an opening to exploit.  Magicians have developed tricks and loopholes around the natural psyche, taking advantage of the tendencies and flaws of an audience member’s mind.” (Powerll)

Marco Tempest discusses the exploitation of magicians to the TED audience.  He says, “The tricks of magic have one special element.  They are stories with a twist.  Now Edward de Bono argued that our brains are pattern-making machines.  He said that magicians deliberately exploit the way their audiences think” (Tempest).  The audience watches a magician perform a magic trick as they would listen to someone tell them a story; however, it is when there is a surprise effect or an element that defies natural logic that an audience is truly amazed by a magic trick (Tempest).  Martinez-Conde and Macknik discuss this in more detail:  when an audience watches a magic trick their attention is drawn to the effect but diverted away from the magician’s methods (75).

Raymond Joseph Teller, American magician. Click image to see Teller reveal the deception and tactics behind one of his magic tricks.3

Most of the magic tricks that are performed by magicians are simply illusions.  Magicians use visual and cognitive illusions to fool and manipulate the expectations of an audience.  Examples of these illusions are “spoon bending” and object vanishment (Macknik et al. 871-872).  Martinez-Courte and Macknik explain why the illusion of “spoon bending is successful:  “Neurons in the visual cortex sensitive to both motion and line endings respond differently to oscillations than other visual neurons do.  The result is an apparent discrepancy between the ends of a stimulus and its center; a solid object seems to flex in the middle” (77).  Misdirection is a form of cognitive illusion—the magician is actually manipulating and exploiting the minds of the audience members.   When a magician performs a trick he or she knows that the audience is unlikely to notice motions or objects that he or she ignores. (Macknik et al. 872-873).  The key to a successful magic trick is managing a movement that the audience does not see, notice, or suspect:  this is most successfully done when the magician has power over their audience members.

The third aspect of magicians’ manipulation is forcing.  Forcing involves giving an audience the illusion of choice when, in reality, the magician has a plan in place, eliminating any real freedom of choice (Powerll).  For example, magicians frequently play off of the human tendency to believe that one event will cause another event.  Martinez-Conde and Macknik discuss this using the following scenario:  “The skilled magician takes advantage of that predisposition by making sure that event A (say, pouring water on a ball) always precedes event B (the ball disappearing).  In fact, A does not cause B, but its prior appearance helps the magician to make it seem so” (79).  In this situation, the magician is using the audience members’ own assumptions to force them into believing beliefs that are false—the audience will assume that event A causes event B.  Therefore, members of the audience will not discover how the magician is actually making event B happen.

Scientific research in psychology and neurobiology has made many strives to more fully understand the success of magicians.  Future research may involve further investigations into the human brain’s tendencies and susceptibilities to techniques of misdirection.  This knowledge would increase scientists’ understanding of the relationship between magic and science (Gustav and Martinez 5-6).  Audiences of magic shows love tricks that amaze and thrill them and that defy natural logic.  Magicians will continue to search for and practice new techniques of misdirection, illusions, and forcing to baffle and amaze their audiences.  Meanwhile, scientists will likely develop empirical experiments to test magicians’ techniques as well as the mental tendencies of the human mind (Gustav and Martinez 6).  Magicians work their magic with skills of precision and skill, and it may be a long time before audience members are able to fully understand how magicians manage to fool them so easily.

Works Cited

Kuhn, Gustav and Luis M. Marinez. “Misdirection—Past, Present, and the Future.” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 6. Jan 2012. Web.

Macknik, Stephen L. et al. “Attention and Awareness in Stage Magic: Turning Tricks Into Research.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9.11 (2008): 871-879. Academic Search Premier. Web. 2 May 2012.

Marinez-Conde, Susana and Stephen L. Macknik. “Magic and the Brain.” Scientific American Dec 2008: 72-79. Print.

Powerll, Devin. “Magicology: How Magicians Control Your Mind.” New Scientist. 24. Dec. 2008. Mind Power News. Web. 11. April 2012.

Tempest, Marco. “A Magical Tale (with augmented reality).” TED.com. TED Conferences. Mar. 2012. Web. 16 April 2012.

Media References

¹ Tempest, Marco. “A Magical Tale (with augmented reality).” TED.com. TED Conferences. Mar. 2012. Web. 16 April 2012.

² Simons & Chabris. “Selective Attention Test.” YouTube. YouTube. 1999. Web. 3 May 2012.

³ Gravenor, Misha. “How to Do a Magic Trick: The Magician Teller Tells How to Pull Coins Out of Thin Air.” Scientific American. 24 Nov. 2008. Web. 5 May 2012.

A Childhood Memory

I took this picture at a pond near my hometown, and it reminds me of my childhood days when I would feed bread to the ducks with my sister and two cousins.  When we were little the mallard ducks used to swim right up to us in the brook in my Grandma’s backyard and we would throw them pieces of break or handfuls of Cheerios. The water in this photograph represents the water of the brook that borders my grandma’s backyard.  I spent a lot of time sitting by the water’s edge, and this picture helps to demonstrate the peace and tranquility that I often felt when I was sitting there.  The point of view of this picture is from my point of view when I was little, sitting on the rocks at the edge of the water. I always loved the green heads that mallard ducks have, and after taking this picture I realize that I still do even though I no longer feed the ducks in my Grandma’s backyard.

Learning to Love You More assignment

Record the words of your day.

How to do this:

1. Choose a day that you are going to record, and carry around a notebook, pad, Post-Its, or journal all day

2. Every time you say something, write down it down

3. Every time you hear someone else say something that interests you, write it down

4. At the end of the day you will have a long list of quotations and thoughts that summarize your entire day.

5. Consider adding small mementos such as ticket stubs or candy wrappers that you may have used during the day and add them to the notes.

6. Do this for as many days as you like, and before you know it you can have a book of quotes that may be fun to go back and read one day.

David Foster Wallace Commencement Speech–This Is Water

David Foster Wallace, click to hear his commencement speech "This Is Water" via YouTube

  I have always enjoyed listening to different commencement speeches. I have listened to speeches by Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Ellen DeGeneres.  I knew who these people were and was intrigued to listen to their advice.  Bill Gates founded Microsoft among other things, Steve Jobs was the Macintosh and technology genius that, with Bill Gates, changed the world, and Ellen is, well she’s Ellen–that says it all.  But now I have added David Foster Wallace to the mix.  I was instructed to read this commencement speech, but I decided to listen to it on YouTube instead. It is a different experience listening to someone’s voice compared to simply reading their words.  So I listened to this speech, but I had no idea who David Foster Wallace was. So I looked him up.  He was an award winning writer of both fiction and non-fiction.  The biography that I read of him also mentioned that, no matter where he was, he was always a member of a church.  This helps explain why he discusses topics of religion and worship in “This Is Water.”  Listening to this speech I thought it was strange that he would mention a topic such as religion and atheism during a college commencement; this was until I realized that he was addressing graduates of Kenyon College, a religious affiliate private college.  Well that explains it.  This seemed a strange topic to me because I attend a public school where diversity of religion is valued.

    Later on in his biography I read that he committed suicide several years ago after battling with depression for about 20 years.  Thinking back on his speech it seems reasonable, or at least I can see this in his speech.  I enjoyed “This Is Water” greatly, but it seemed rather cynical to me.  I can’t say that I disagree with the words that Mr. Wallace spoke, but it did make me nervous of the future.  College graduates are all hard-working individuals because it takes dedication to remain devoted to education for such a long time.  According to David Foster Wallace, “It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out. Which means yet another grand cliché turns out to be true: your education really IS the job of a lifetime. And it commences: now. I wish you way more than luck.” College was supposed to be a student’s key to a better future. But is that actually true anymore? Is he speaking the truth or is it better to hope for the worst and then it will only be better? It’s a tough question. In a crippled economy jobs are scarce, so maybe we (students) should expect to have no job and no money after college. Maybe that will make the reality of life a little bit easier for us. I think this may be the way that Mr. Wallace is leaning in this commencement speech:  This is the beginning of reality and you better be thinking about what is ahead of you before you lose control.

   While describing the reality of the real world after college I found myself laughing.  Nothing he said was meant as a joke, but I laughed along with the rest of the crowd as David Foster Wallace described our daily perceptions–as he described our individual thoughts that we are the center of the universe.  Every adult knows that the world can not revolve around them.  There will always be something more important:  terrorism, politics, the divorce of those two celebrities, the marriage of those two other celebrities, or the fact that the polar ice caps are melting, or maybe that the president has begun caring more about re-election that about his actual job.  Whatever it is, it’s obvious that no single person, whether famous or homeless, can be the center of everyone’s attention.  We all have the same thoughts.  It was realizing how right Mr. Wallace was that made me, and other people in the audience, laugh as he described thoughts which we know we either have, or will, one day think regarding others and our place on this planet.

   I cannot say what David Foster Wallace intended for this audience to take from this commencement speech.  My guess is that, like other things, you can take away from it what you’d like. But my interpretation is, to put it simply, that life is tough and an education is the best way to understand it.  If you let yourself slip into the monotonous lifestyle Mr. Wallace describes, then you are setting yourself up for a life that is unworthy of the dedication and hard-work that one put out to obtain any level of education, whether you are a high school dropout or a newly licensed doctor with a PhD.

I encourage everyone to listen to not just this commencement speech, but as many as possible. They all have a message and a lesson to be learned.