Abstract
Magicians use several techniques to deceive their audiences, including, for example, the misdirection of attention and verbal suggestion. We explored another potential stratagem, namely the relaxation of attention. Participants watched a video of a highly skilled magician whilst having their eye-blinks recorded. The timing of spontaneous eye-blinks was highly synchronized across participants. In addition, the synchronized blinks frequency occurred immediately after a seemingly impossible feat, and often coincided with actions that the magician wanted to conceal from the audience. Given that blinking is associated with the relaxation of attention, these findings suggest that blinking plays an important role in the perception of magic, and that magicians may utilize blinking and the relaxation of attention to hide certain secret actions.
Highlights
Psychologists have long been interested in why audiences are fooled by magic tricks
Researchers have yet to study one of the most frequently used attentional stratagems employed by magicians; namely, encouraging an audience to relax the intensity of their externalized attention whilst a secret action is being performed (Thomas et al, 2015)
Slydini (Ganson, 2001) demonstrated how magicians’ bodily movements can deceive audiences into thinking that nothing important is happening at certain moments, Kurtz (1998) discussed how performances often have a natural rhythm and how audiences relax their externalized attention on the ‘off-beats’ of this rhythm, How to cite this article Wiseman and Nakano (2016), Blink and you’ll miss it: the role of blinking in the perception of magic tricks
Summary
Psychologists have long been interested in why audiences are fooled by magic tricks (see, e.g., Binet, 1894; Jastrow, 1896: Triplett, 1900). Researchers have yet to study one of the most frequently used attentional stratagems employed by magicians; namely, encouraging an audience to relax the intensity of their externalized attention whilst a secret action is being performed (Thomas et al, 2015). This omission is perhaps surprising, given that magicians have produced an extensive literature describing various techniques that encourage such relaxation of externalized attention.
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