As we know, magic tricks are fun! But we're always left pondering the method of the magician. Where is the trick? What if it wasn't necessarily the magician who was pulling the "wool over your eyes" but your brain itself? What if a magician is merely a master of the mind, not the hand? On a Nova special about the brain, the show poses the same questions as any fan of magic tricks. But what we find is not quite as we expect. It is our mind that a magician harnesses for their magic to work. For example, the simple three red cups bit, with the one ball under. And somehow, that ball becomes two, then three! How does this happen. Simple -eye tracking. Our eyes tend to focus on the action, the wave of the hand. It's certainly a distraction, but it works when -to many audiences' surprise - the trickery is done right under our noses.
How about the coin trick? It's a popular stunt. The coin is in the magician's hand then behind your ear? How does this work? Inferred movement. Our brain making assumptions of where the end moved, due to the direction it traveled. We assumed that the coin went into the right hand, when it fact, the magician may have slipped it in his pocket. Our brains are quite sensitive to motion, and from here a simple momentum of movement can confuse of us to believe the motion was completed. As stated in the video, it is part of our survival mechanism.
Here's a link to the video: http://video.pbs.org/video/1757229644/
It can also be viewed on Netflix. Just look under: How does the brain work? NOVA scienceNOW
Post by Arianna Williams
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