WEBVTT - Ep65 "Why do brains so easily fall for magic tricks?" 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:08.399 We're the first people to discover things about the human brain, 0:00:08.920 --> 0:00:15.400 neuroscientists or magicians. How do magicians steer your attention? Why 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:18.200 can't you see what they're doing when they do something 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:21.119 right in front of you? And how can someone appear 0:00:21.239 --> 0:00:27.760 to read your mind? Welcome to Inner Cosmos with me 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:31.840 David Eagleman. I'm a neuroscientist and an author at Stanford 0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:35.240 and in these episodes, we sail deeply into our three 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:39.600 pound universe to understand why and how our lives look 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:51.479 the way they do. Today's episode dives deep into the 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:55.920 world of magic tricks. Why do magic tricks work? I'm 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:59.760 not talking about the mechanics of how a card trick, 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:03.680 or how a magician saws a box in half and 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:06.720 it's actually two ladies and two boxes, or how a 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:09.679 magician pulls off a trick with mirrors. I'm not talking 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:12.440 about that. I want to talk about the way the 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:17.000 human brain works and how that opens the door to 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:20.600 us getting fooled. And so I'm going to start with 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:24.880 an assertion if brains worked in a totally different way, 0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:30.440 presumably we would have different sorts of magic tricks. Other 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:34.120 things would work for us. So, for example, if we 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:38.479 ever discover life on other planets, we might find that 0:01:38.520 --> 0:01:44.400 the aliens visual systems or attentional systems work differently, and 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:49.040 therefore an alien magician stands on stage in front of 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:53.280 its alien audience and does things that would seem patently 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:57.400 obvious to us, and all the aliens would put their 0:01:57.560 --> 0:02:01.000 green hands over their mouths and gasp, wow, how did 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:04.040 she do that? In other words, if they have some 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:07.680 sort of flaw in their understanding of the reality of 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:12.079 the world out there, then their magicians could take advantage 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:16.040 of that and they would be flummixed. So in today's episode, 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:18.920 we're gonna take the opposite view. We're going to pretend 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:22.440 we're the aliens looking at the humans, and we'll get 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:25.520 to see the flaws in the human brain that way 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:30.280 that cause us to misperceive reality, which gives rise to 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:35.320 a class of people known as magicians, who exploit these 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:41.120 neural deficits, either for profit or entertainment. And what's fascinating 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:43.639 is that even though we've figured out a lot about 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:47.800 the brain, there's a sense in which neuroscientists are always 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:51.560 playing catch up to those people who have mastered the 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:55.760 art of perception. This can be the stage magician or 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:59.440 the mentalist, or the person running a seance, or the 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:02.280 guy run the shell game on a street corner, or 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:08.640 the professional pickpocket. These people have mastered manipulation through a 0:03:08.680 --> 0:03:12.040 lot of trial and error. And now we're at a 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:16.480 fascinating point where there's a collaboration going on between these 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:21.200 two fields, where neuroscientists try to figure out the science 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:26.480 of what magicians already figured out works. In other words, 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:31.000 neuroscience is following the scent trails of the magicians to 0:03:31.120 --> 0:03:34.960 figure out what makes these tricks and sleight of hand 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:40.200 and illusions full our neural networks. Now, if you've been 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:43.920 listening to this podcast, you'll know that the brain lives 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:47.480 in silence and darkness, and it's always trying to construct 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:52.440 an internal model of the outside world. The critical point 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:56.240 for today is that there is not a perfect mapping 0:03:56.400 --> 0:03:59.280 from the outside to the inside. In other words, it's 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:02.920 not as though something happens in the outside world and 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:06.920 we have a perfect record of that on the inside. Instead, 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:12.160 if something happens outside the spotlight of where you're paying attention, 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:15.800 you just don't see it at all. But the brain's 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:19.159 job is to put together a story of what the 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:21.960 heck is happening in the world out there, and so 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:25.440 it will do so even if it has missed that event, 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:28.840 even if its story is totally wrong. Its job is 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:31.839 to narrate what is going on in the world given 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:36.240 its best understanding. So that means if you don't see 0:04:36.240 --> 0:04:39.000 some sleight of hand, your brain will nonetheless cook up 0:04:39.040 --> 0:04:43.279 a story like the coin must have disappeared into thin 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:47.159 air and then it later appeared in my pocket. Now 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:52.200 let's say those aliens don't have an attentional spotlight like 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:55.080 we do, so they can see everything happening in the scene. 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:58.280 They would be totally amused that you fell for that. 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:02.080 To them, you're like a dog falling for a simple trick, 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:04.400 like when you pretend to throw a ball and you 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:07.719 hide it behind your back and the dog gets fooled. 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:12.480 So today we're going to explore the science behind the magic, 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:13.880 and we're going to get there with the help of 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:17.839 two interviews. First, we're going to talk with a magician 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:22.280 and then with two neuroscientists who study why magic works. 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:26.000 So first I called up my friend Robert Strong, a 0:05:26.040 --> 0:05:32.160 professional magician, and asked him about his experience with manipulating attention. 0:05:37.160 --> 0:05:40.600 So Robert tell us about what magicians need to understand 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:43.560 about the brain in order to do what you do. 0:05:44.080 --> 0:05:50.440 So magicians have spent five thousand years abe testing tricks 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:54.080 on humans to find the moments where the attention, where 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:56.680 the gaze is upon you, but the attention is not 0:05:56.920 --> 0:06:00.440 on you, so that the eyes may see them, but 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:03.200 the brain doesn't record it. And what we do is 0:06:03.240 --> 0:06:06.080 we pay really close attention to people for those moments 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:10.320 where the attention is somewhere else. And sometimes it happens naturally, 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:13.599 but mostly we manufacture it where the attention is internal. 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:18.480 What's an example of how you would manufacture where someone's 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:19.080 attention is. 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:23.160 So the three that I use the most. The first 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:27.320 is where I'm interested, is where they're interested. So I 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:31.039 show no interest in the method or the secret, but 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:33.359 I bring all my folks and attention and my gaze 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:37.960 to where the secret isn't that's the classical misdirection. 0:06:38.400 --> 0:06:40.240 So can you unpack that with an example? 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:43.680 So if I were to hold up a dollar bill 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:47.320 and I bring my attention and focus to the dollar bill, 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:49.960 that's where I want them to be. But if I 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:52.160 want to sneak something into the dollar bill, if I'm 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:54.479 going to fold a bill around like a coin or 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:57.599 something to make a prop that I'm going to use later. 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:01.080 What I'll do is I'll show it intron in the subject. 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:03.080 So where are you from? Have you ever done a 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:05.480 magic trick before? Is this your first time being magical? 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:08.640 And so I take my focus intention interest over there. 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:11.160 The other thing I could do is I might have 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:15.200 a red herring for this. I need a pen or pencil. 0:07:15.240 --> 0:07:18.880 Do you have one? Let's look. While they're looking, I'm 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:20.600 putting the coin in the door, right in. 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:20.960 Front of them. 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:24.480 Their eyes could record it, but it just doesn't no pen, 0:07:24.520 --> 0:07:26.320 That's okay. I'll use the bill as a magic wand 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:27.920 so it's a red herring. 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:30.640 And did you say there were three ways you do it? 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:33.360 There's probably a dozen, but there's three that I use 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:36.080 the most. The one that I focus on probably the 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:40.120 most is humor. Just a little joke. And when you 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:43.160 give a little joke, they laugh for just a moment. 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:46.200 Their gaze is on you, but they don't record what 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:48.920 they're seeing. So if they were actually watching a video 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:50.520 of it, they can rewind it, slow it down, and 0:07:50.560 --> 0:07:52.880 they can see me do the secret move. They didn't move, 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:56.320 but in real time, they just don't record it, okay, 0:07:56.600 --> 0:07:58.960 And what's the third The third one that I use 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:03.880 the most is either the trick is over or I 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:07.520 apparently fail. So if you chose the King of Hearts 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:10.720 and I pull out the Two of Hearts, you go, Nope, 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:12.800 that's not it. I go, oh, that just didn't work. 0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:16.000 I dropped my shoulders, I bring my gaze and attention, 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:19.040 like darn, that didn't work. And when they go, oh, 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:21.680 the trick's over or he failed, then I could do 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:23.440 the secret move right in front of them and the 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:25.480 brain doesn't record it. I go, We'll give me one 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:27.680 more chance, or tell me what your card is, and 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:31.400 then their card is in a magical place like inside 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:33.480 a box they've been holding the whole time. A lot 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:37.360 of magicians that do really good sleide of hand do 0:08:37.480 --> 0:08:42.000 a lot of overwhelming them with cues. Can you hold 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:44.120 that a little lower? Can you bring that a little 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:47.240 bit closer? Can you make sure everybody can see? 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:47.640 You know? 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:51.120 And just giving them a set of cues one after another, 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:54.960 they stop recording the secret move that's right in front 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:56.559 of them because they don't want to get it wrong. 0:08:56.920 --> 0:09:00.520 So if you are an assistant on stage in front 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:03.880 of two people or ten thousand people, and I give 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:06.440 you a set of instructions, and I just hit you 0:09:06.440 --> 0:09:10.240 with three or four instructions, especially if number one slightly 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:14.360 contradicts number four. All of a sudden, you're looking right 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:17.800 at me, but you're not recording the secret move. So 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:19.480 if I say, can you hold that a little bit lower? 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:21.200 Can you hold a little bit closer, no closer to 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:22.640 your body a little higher? 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:22.959 Please? 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:25.560 And now they're thinking that was he said lower to 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:27.520 a Hi. I don't want to get that wrong, And 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:30.480 they're trying to split the difference. They're looking right at you, 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:33.720 but the brain doesn't record a secret move that happens 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:37.080 right in front of them. Another great one is what 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:40.040 you do use is called bottom up. Something that just 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:44.120 comes from nowhere. So a piece of flash paper, a 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:48.520 flash of light, a sound on a sudden movement, an 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:52.840 assistant comes on stage, something shiny and bright that just distracts, 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:56.200 like the cartoon squirrel. You give them something that just 0:09:56.280 --> 0:09:58.320 takes their gaze off for just a moment, and that 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:00.679 gives you enough time to sneak an elephant to the room. 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:04.920 Oh excellent. Yeah. In neuroscience we talk about exogenous and 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:10.079 endogenous attention, meaning you know, exogerous attention is something happens 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:13.000 the snap, debang, the flash, and it causes you to look. 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:16.560 It grabs your attention over there, whereas endogenous attention is 0:10:16.600 --> 0:10:19.640 where I'm choosing to put my attention or where I 0:10:19.679 --> 0:10:21.880 think I'm choosing to put it. And that's all the 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:25.240 first things you mentioned. We're taking people's in dodgenous attention, 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:29.520 but the sudden effect is what grabs their attention. Then 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:31.640 you can do lots of things right under their nose. 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:35.680 The terms the magicians use are bottom up top down. 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:38.280 So if I'm holding a lighter and a piece of 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:41.760 flash paper. For a bottom up, I light the flash paper, 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:43.600 it makes a big flash in the air of all 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:46.000 the eyes and gaze goes up while they handholding the 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:48.839 lighter dumps it into a secret pocket, brings him back 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:51.760 to the previous position, and when the eyes come down, 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:55.280 the letter is now apparently vanished. But for top down, 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:59.000 I might say watch this piece of paper closely, bring 0:10:59.040 --> 0:11:02.000 your gaze in close, watch really closely, and when they're 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:06.520 following the instructions, probably by force perspective, I can toss 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:09.440 that piece of paper over their head. Outside of their view, 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:11.880 all they see is the back of my hand. And 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:15.200 when I come back down, apparently holding the paper and 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:19.080 balling up into my other hand, the volunteer sees the 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:21.520 ball in their mind. When I say sees that, they 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:24.760 see their mind's eye go into the hand. And because 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:27.200 I am directing them and keeping them really focused in 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:29.160 my place, they're not seeing the places I don't want 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:31.319 them to see. And then I can apparently make it 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:34.559 vanish and had already been gone for a few seconds. 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:37.840 Tell us about other types of misdirection that you exploit. 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:41.760 One very powerful type of misdirection that I use all 0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:45.319 the time is something called time misdirection. I'm not a neuroscientist, 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:48.640 but my understanding is that the brain has really good 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:52.640 instant recall. So in my being out there in the 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:55.080 field and doing magic tricks for people, if I do 0:11:55.200 --> 0:11:58.120 the secret move and then the reveal immediately after that, 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:00.319 the brain is really good at rewinding a set or 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:03.280 two and going, something just happened, and I know that's 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:05.840 when the magic happened. Maybe I don't understand what the 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:09.120 secret move was. So magicians try to create a lot 0:12:09.160 --> 0:12:13.160 of time distance between a secret move and the reveal 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:16.520 of the magic trick where the magical moment happens. So 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:19.800 a really good example of time as direction is a 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:22.679 magic trick that every magician learns at the beginning of 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:25.760 their career, and it's in every kid's book. It's forcing 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:28.240 a playing card, giving the illusion of a free choice. 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:30.320 So if I show I've got a deck of cards 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:33.480 where the cards are all different, and I peek at 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:35.400 the bottom card and I secretly know that it is 0:12:35.440 --> 0:12:37.880 the Queen of Hearts, I ask you to cut the 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:40.520 cards into two piles. So you take the top half 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:42.760 and place it on the table, and I take the 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:45.679 bottom half and I criss crossed it across the top 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:46.160 of the cards. 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:49.120 Like, so, now I talk to you, I say you 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:51.079 had a free choice. There's fifty two cards. 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:53.600 It would be a small miracle if I can tell 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:56.480 you that you cut to the Queen of Hearts before 0:12:56.480 --> 0:12:57.880 you look at the card you cut to. I just 0:12:57.920 --> 0:12:59.439 want to make sure you know that I didn't even 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:01.640 touch the car cards. And then I go and I 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:03.240 pick up the pile of the cards, and I show 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:05.680 you that the card that you cut to was indeed 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:08.640 the Queen of Hearts. It was simply the bottom card. 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:12.680 But enough timeness direction, the audience loses track of which 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:14.920 is the top and which is the bottom. 0:13:15.000 --> 0:13:19.880 Excellent, So tell us how you, as a magician exploit assumptions. 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:21.520 That's a great question. 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:24.520 I think everything we do as we exploit assumption is 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:27.280 because the human brain lives in the future, is predicting 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:29.839 what's coming next. And if we take them down that 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:34.480 road of giving them all the supporting evidence that everything 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:37.439 they believe to be is true is true, and then 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:39.200 we pull back the curtain and we show them a 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:42.880 new reveal, something that's unexpected, that's the magical moment. So 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:46.960 we understand that people believe that if I'm holding a 0:13:47.000 --> 0:13:52.000 rubber band and I make a very specific sound like this, 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:56.440 that the rubber band is now broken. And I gave 0:13:56.480 --> 0:13:59.320 you supporting visual evidence by giving the illusion that the 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:02.360 rubber band's broken. But the rubber band never broke. All 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:05.000 I did was pluck it like a musical instrument at 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:08.319 the right time. The eyes could see that I didn't 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:12.360 break it. But because you hear the sound, the brain goes, oh, 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:15.199 that's super familiar. I know that sound. And then they 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:17.760 see what looks like a broken rubber band. They jumped 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:20.480 to the wrong conclusion for the right reasons. Oh, for 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:23.000 the audience that's listening. Here's what I did was I 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:25.080 took a rubber band and I put my index fingers 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:26.440 and I'm making a long oval. 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:29.479 And I took that long oval, and I. 0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:31.280 Collapsed the top band down to the bottom band to 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:34.480 make the two lines, so it looks like a single band. 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:36.760 And I stretched it out and made a new circle. 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:39.760 And now to complete the circle, I took my finger 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:42.840 out of the oval, and now I've got this little 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:45.240 nub here I can pluck, and it looks like a 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:47.680 new circle or a new rubber band, but in reality, 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:50.640 it's a stretched out rubber band. And that plucking sound 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:53.200 completes the illusion in the brain that the rubber band 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:55.200 is broken. And then all I have to do is 0:14:55.960 --> 0:14:57.640 open up the oval and show that it was never 0:14:57.680 --> 0:14:59.720 actually broken, or that it's magically restored. 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:04.120 So for the audio audience, it looks like Robert breaks 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:06.640 a rubber band. It looks like he's got a single 0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:11.240 stretch of rubber and he pulls it and you hear 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:13.440 the sound and you think, oh, I see he has 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:15.920 just snapped the rubber band. And then a moment later 0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:19.560 he shows you bunk. Here is the complete rubber band again. 0:15:19.840 --> 0:15:22.640 But Robert, you're saying a big part of that is 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:26.560 the sound of seeing it and the assumption of what 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:28.000 that translates to. 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:32.480 So that specifically as sound synchronization. But we do give 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:37.880 an all magic supporting evidence of the illusion, so that 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:41.000 way all thoughts of hey, there's something funny going on 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:43.280 or this isn't real goes away and you believe in 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:46.640 the reality that we're creating terrific. 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:49.760 Yeah, all of us, of course live in our own head. 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:54.000 We've got our internal models running. We interpret reality, and 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:58.360 your job as a magician is simply to navigate what 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:01.600 we think is the reality going on. I know you 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:05.600 think about forced perspectives like this to tell us about that. 0:16:06.200 --> 0:16:09.880 So a lot of times magicians just simply understand your 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:13.040 point of view literally. So we'll practice in front of 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:14.680 a mirror or a camera, and if we get the 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:18.560 angles right, we can create allusion that something appears, disappears, 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:22.840 or even levitates. And this is one that's pretty easy 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:26.480 to explain. But from your point of view, you see 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:31.560 a silver ball that is apparently floating, Yes, But from 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:33.800 another point of view or another angle, when I turn 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:36.440 the sideway, so you can see it's a silver soup ladle, 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:39.200 and you were just seeing the bowl of it and 0:16:39.240 --> 0:16:41.440 weren't seeing the handle, and the handle was simply under 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:44.760 my armpit, which creates a beautiful illusion in the kitchen 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:45.840 at soup time. 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:49.360 Okay, So just for the audio audience, he put the 0:16:49.400 --> 0:16:52.840 soup ladle under his arm so the bottom of it 0:16:52.880 --> 0:16:55.480 is sticking out towards us, and it looks like a 0:16:55.560 --> 0:16:58.560 floating silver ball. And then he takes his hands off 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:00.560 of the silver ball and it makes it look like 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:05.159 he's levitating it with his hands. It's so simple and 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:08.520 so good and so compelling. Check out the video if 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:11.360 you're just listening to this on audio. Okay, So that's 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:14.480 an example of forced perspective, as in, you know exactly 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:18.200 where I am in the case of zoom COVID pandemic. 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:21.000 Must have been cool for you in certain ways because 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:23.280 you got to do all kinds of zoom magic tricks 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:25.720 where you know precisely what the perspective is. But when 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:29.000 you're doing this in an audience and live audience with 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:31.000 lots of people, what kind of things can you do 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:32.400 there in person? 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:36.399 Combining everything we've talked about, you can create a series 0:17:36.400 --> 0:17:38.880 of illusions that happen back to back to back to back. 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:42.159 So it's just bombarded with magic. Because one of the 0:17:42.200 --> 0:17:45.840 things I like to create is just a bombardment of 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:48.520 magic all coming out to your senses, all wines and together. 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:51.120 It's a cumulative effect and it feels super magical. 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:55.640 That's great. And people, even if they're sniffing out some 0:17:55.680 --> 0:17:58.040 particular part of it, you're hitting them with lots of 0:17:58.080 --> 0:17:59.840 different things, and so they're not going to pick up 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:00.680 on what's going on. 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:03.080 Yeah, and they focus on the one that fools them. 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:05.800 Yeah, that's right. So Robert, how do you make sure 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:09.040 that you understand what it is like to be in 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:11.080 the audience's shoes looking at you. 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:15.240 So magicians have to have a lot of empathy. We're 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:19.400 creating moments of delight and joy for other people, so 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:22.919 we have to literally see it from their perspective, like 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:25.120 physically for the magic to work. 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:26.400 But we also have to know. 0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:30.199 What's their life experience and what's their expectations, what's their assumptions, 0:18:30.240 --> 0:18:33.000 and kind of put ourselves in their shoes to create 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:37.040 moments of joy. And I was wanting to asked, what 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:41.520 is the best magic trick. My answer was the ham 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:45.920 sandwich heading. Gnulms, a Baltimore magician I think in the fifties, 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:48.840 wrote a book and it's just a little paragraph in there. 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:50.680 And the way it explains how you get to the 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:53.040 best magic trick in the world is if you and 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:55.919 I were walking down the street and you said, do 0:18:56.000 --> 0:18:58.280 a magic trick, and I reached the right packet, I 0:18:58.359 --> 0:18:59.480 pull out a ham sandwich. 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:00.920 You like, that's weird. 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:04.520 But if it were lunchtimer walking down the street and 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:06.639 you say do magic trick and I pull out ham sandwich, 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:09.639 You're like, well, that's convenient timing. But if you had 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:12.560 just explained to me a ham sandwich that you had 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:15.040 been thinking about all day long, it was from your childhood, 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:17.640 you could even get it here. And then you say 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:20.120 do a magic trick and I pull up that ham sandwich. 0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:25.280 It's a freaking miracle. So when I say magicians have empathy, 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:28.680 they really good magicians really take the time to think 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:33.040 about where are they physically? Who are they? Are they engineers? 0:19:33.040 --> 0:19:36.520 Are they scientists? What's going on? Do they just get funding, 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:38.720 do they just get FDA approval? 0:19:39.119 --> 0:19:40.479 What's the space they're in there? 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:43.560 There's a fountain there, and there's or they're on a 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:45.879 ship in the bay or something like that, and then 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:47.720 you take the lot all together and you create an 0:19:47.760 --> 0:19:51.560 illusion that is a freaking experience that they'll remember for 0:19:51.600 --> 0:20:05.480 the rest of their lives. 0:20:08.040 --> 0:20:12.199 That was Robert Strong, a professional magician. It's wonderful to 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:15.640 watch his performances, and I'm linking some of his videos 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:18.520 in the show notes. And next I called up two 0:20:18.600 --> 0:20:23.200 colleagues of mine, Stephen Macknick and Susannah Martinez Conde. They're 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:27.840 both neuroscience professors and researchers at State University of New 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:32.520 York Downtown Medical Center. They've been studying the intersection of 0:20:32.680 --> 0:20:36.240 magic with neuroscience for years, so I wanted to dive 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:43.720 in with them. So you've asserted that magicians have been 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:48.560 testing and exploiting the limits of attention and cognition for 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:52.800 hundreds of years, and neurosciences just beginning to catch up 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:54.439 with that. So tell us about that. 0:20:54.960 --> 0:20:59.000 We have been studying the neuroscience of magic for I 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:03.080 guess about the almost twenty years now, and something that 0:21:03.119 --> 0:21:07.040 we realize early on is that as neuroscientists, we have 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:12.280 sometimes been reinventing the wheel and arrive into conclusions and 0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:16.879 finding things about the mind and the brain that the 0:21:16.960 --> 0:21:21.199 magicians know for centuries, if not longer. So I have 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:25.520 an example causes such as change blindness and in attentional blindness. 0:21:25.920 --> 0:21:31.119 These are cognitive neuroscience concepts that basically refer to the 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:37.160 way that our brain prioritizes attention. So change blindness refers 0:21:37.200 --> 0:21:41.560 to when something changes but you don't realize, you don't 0:21:41.640 --> 0:21:45.560 notice the change because you have not been paying attention, 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:50.040 sometimes during a gamma change, and we have continuity errors 0:21:50.080 --> 0:21:53.520 in movies and that sort of situation. And in attentional 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:58.080 blindness simply refers to the fact that we cannot attend 0:21:58.119 --> 0:21:59.960 to a million things at once. We can, in fact, 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:02.840 to attend to one thing at once, and so whatever 0:22:03.119 --> 0:22:07.040 you're not attending to, you are going to ignore. And 0:22:07.280 --> 0:22:09.960 you could say that you're blind to those events you're 0:22:10.000 --> 0:22:10.960 not attended. 0:22:10.560 --> 0:22:13.440 To, and so magicians take advantage of this. 0:22:13.800 --> 0:22:17.119