Magic and cognitive neuroscience

Abstract

In recent years, neuroscientists have shown an increasing interest in magic. One reason for this is the parallels that can be drawn between concepts that have long been discussed in magic theory, particularly misdirection, and those that are routinely studied in cognitive neuroscience, such as attention and, as argued in this essay, different forms of memory. A second and perhaps more attractive justification for this growing interest is that magic tricks offer novel experimental approaches to cognitive neuroscience. In fact, magicians continuously demonstrate in very engaging ways one of the most basic principles of brain function - how the brain constructs a subjective reality using assumptions based on relatively little and ambiguous information.