Psychology of Magic: SCI-ART

In 2002, Prof Wiseman and Dr Lamont received funding from the Sci-Art Consortium to test some of the theories developed in their earlier work, and explore how a greater understanding of academic psychology may help magicians enhance their performances. This involved travelling to Las Vegas to work with leading magicians and mind readers. Some of the work examined the psychology of lying, and involved well-known magician Max Maven (see link on left).

Other work involved trying to discover if it were possible to create a new type of magic trick, based upon research from academic psychology. Discussions with several performers eventually led to Wiseman and Lamont devising a novel card trick, and the resulting footage of this trick has fooled both performers and laypeople alike. Lance Burton recently performed this trick on the Discovery Channel television special ‘The Science of Magic’.

The trick utilises a phenomenon known as inattentional blindness. Research into this concept has been carried out by scientists since the 1970s, and examines why people are poor at detecting large discrepancies in videos that they are closely observing. Some of the most creative work in this area has been produced by Dan Simons and his colleagues from the University of Illinois. Read about Dan Simons' work here.

An article describing this work, and originally published in Magic: The International magazine for magicians, can be downloaded here.