Mind Bending Magic

The secrets behind magic have been revealed by a scientist.

21:48 31 March 2016

Gustav Kuhn, a psychology lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London, has revealed how magic messes with the mind and why illusions confuse us.

 

Magicians, in reality and as we all know, do not make the impossible possible. What they do, however, is exploit errors that our minds create based on our collective visual experiences that results from complex neural processes that make clever estimates about what the world is like.

 

A classic example is a trick wherein the magician throws a ball in the air and makes it disappear after three to four throws. As our minds are fixed on the idea that the ball is being thrown in the air, we do not realise that the magician simply pretend to throw it one last time when it is in fact concealed inside his hand. Our mind tricks us that it is magic as we believe we knew what was going to happen.

 

Magicians also take advantage of a misconception of the amount of detail that we think we are aware of.

 

It is innate for us to think that we are aware most of our surroundings. However, this vivid and detailed subjective experience is also just a powerful illusion. As our brain is simply not designed to store large amount of information, we prioritise only the most important aspects of our environment and ignore things that are relevant.

 

This means that unless you are paying close attention to something you simply won't see it.