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  • https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2006.10.012Copy DOI Icon

There's more to magic than meets the eye

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Abstract

Our perception of an event is often modulated by our past experience and expectations [1Ramachandran V.S. Armel C. Foster C. Stoddard R. Object recognition can drive motion perception.Nature. 1998; 395: 852-853Crossref PubMed Scopus (35) Google Scholar, 2O'Regan J.K. Noe A. A sensorimotor account of vision and visual consciousness.Behav. Brain Sci. 2001; 24: 939-973Crossref PubMed Scopus (1863) Google Scholar]. Here we used a magic trick [3Triplett N. The psychology of conjuring deceptions.Am. J. Psychol. 1900; 6: 439-510Crossref Google Scholar] to demonstrate how magicians can distort our subjective perception and we investigate the mechanisms behind this deception. We found that when a magician performed an illusion in which a ball was seen to vanish in the air, 63% of observers perceived the ball leave his hand, move upwards, and disappear even though the ball did not leave the magician's hand. Moreover, observers' illusory perception of the ball was determined by cues that indicated the ball's location, namely the magician's head direction, rather than the percept itself. Furthermore, eye movement records revealed participants' strategic use of social cues prior to looking at the ball. Surprisingly, however, when the ball was not physically present, observers did not look at the area where they claimed to have seen the ball vanish, suggesting that the oculomotor system was not fooled by the illusion. These results show that although people's subjective percept is determined by expectations, the oculomotor system is largely driven by accurate bottom-up information, which is consistent with the suggestion that there are separate mechanisms for perception and visuomotor control [4Goodale M.A. Milner A.D. Separate visual pathways for perception and action.Trends Neurosci. 1992; 15: 20-25Abstract Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (3924) Google Scholar]. A striking example of magicians' deception is the vanishing ball illusion, in which a ball apparently disappears in mid air. This illusion is created by pretending to throw a ball up in the air, when in fact it remains secretly palmed in the magician's hand [3Triplett N. The psychology of conjuring deceptions.Am. J. Psychol. 1900; 6: 439-510Crossref Google Scholar]. If done convincingly, the observer should perceive the ball as moving up in the air even though it is no longer physically present. Similarly, when observers view a moving object that suddenly disappears, the final position of the object is usually perceived as being further along the path of motion than its actual final position [5Freyd J.J. Finke R.A. Representational Momentum.J. Exp. Psychol. Learn. Mem. Cogn. 1984; 10: 126-132Crossref Scopus (464) Google Scholar], a phenomenon known as representational momentum [6Assad J.A. Maunsell J.H.R. Neuronal correlates of inferred motion in primate posterior parietal carter.Nature. 1995; 373: 518-521Crossref PubMed Scopus (181) Google Scholar]. Much of the magician's deception relies on social cuing, in terms of his head and gaze direction, and we therefore predicted that the effectiveness of the vanishing ball illusion would be influenced by the magician's social cuing. Two different versions of the trick were created that addressed the extent to which the magician's social cues are responsible for the illusion. In the social cues pro-illusion condition, on the final 'fake' throw, the magician's eyes and head followed an imaginary ball moving upwards (Figure 1 and Supplemental data available on-line with this issue). In the social cues anti-illusion condition, the magic trick was identical except that on the final 'fake' throw, the magician looked at the hand concealing the ball, rather than following the imaginary ball (see Figure 2F). We also measured people's eye movements while they watched the video of the trick, to gain an online measure of the information obtained by the visual system. Immediately after having seen the magic trick, participants were questioned as to whether they perceived the 'illusory ball' moving towards the top of the screen on the final throw.Figure 2Participants' fixation points for the social cues pro-illusion (top row) and the social cues anti-illusion (bottom row) conditions.Show full captionThe dots represent the fixation points for the participants who experienced the illusion and the 'X' marks the fixation points for participants who did not experience the illusion. (A,D) At the point when the ball reached its zenith on the first throw. (B,E) at the point when the ball reached its zenith on the second throw. (C,F) At the point when the ball disappeared. For each participant the height of the terminal eye position on the monitor was calculated (distance between the fixation point and the bottom of the monitor, monitor height = 25°); each panel shows the means (M) and standard deviations (SD) for participants who experienced the illusion and those who did not. On the final throw (C,F) there was no significant difference between the final eye position of the participants who perceived the illusion compared to those who did not perceive it (t(36) < 1), which shows that participants' eye movements were not correlated with the perception of the illusion. On the final throw there was no significant difference in the terminal eye positions between the anti- and the pro-illusion condition (t(36) < 1), illustrating that participants' eye movements were not driven by the social cues. 19 participants experienced the illusion. For these participants the terminal eye position on the final throw was significantly lower than on the first (t(18) = 3.23, p = 0.005) and the second throw (t(18) = 3.57, p = 0.002).View Large Image Figure ViewerDownload Hi-res image Download (PPT) The dots represent the fixation points for the participants who experienced the illusion and the 'X' marks the fixation points for participants who did not experience the illusion. (A,D) At the point when the ball reached its zenith on the first throw. (B,E) at the point when the ball reached its zenith on the second throw. (C,F) At the point when the ball disappeared. For each participant the height of the terminal eye position on the monitor was calculated (distance between the fixation point and the bottom of the monitor, monitor height = 25°); each panel shows the means (M) and standard deviations (SD) for participants who experienced the illusion and those who did not. On the final throw (C,F) there was no significant difference between the final eye position of the participants who perceived the illusion compared to those who did not perceive it (t(36) < 1), which shows that participants' eye movements were not correlated with the perception of the illusion. On the final throw there was no significant difference in the terminal eye positions between the anti- and the pro-illusion condition (t(36) < 1), illustrating that participants' eye movements were not driven by the social cues. 19 participants experienced the illusion. For these participants the terminal eye position on the final throw was significantly lower than on the first (t(18) = 3.23, p = 0.005) and the second throw (t(18) = 3.57, p = 0.002). Participants who perceived the illusory ball had a vivid recollection of seeing the ball leave the screen at the top, and typically claimed that the illusion was created by someone catching it beyond the top of the screen. 68% of the participants in the social cues pro-illusion condition experienced the illusion, significantly more than in the social cues anti-illusion condition (32%, χ2 = 5.16, p = 0.025), thus demonstrating that the illusion was mediated by the social cuing. Most of the participants claimed that they spent their entire time looking at the ball. However, these reports deviated strongly from where they were actually looking. Figure 1 shows a timeline indicating where participants were looking during the magic trick. We found a very high consistency in the eye movement patterns between the participants, suggesting that people employed similar eye movement strategies. On throws where the ball was visible, participants generally looked at the ball once it reached the apex. But rather than merely tracking the ball, most of the participants glanced at the magician's face before looking at the ball, indicating that the visual system uses information about where the magician is looking as a way of predicting the location of the ball. Our results show that an observer's percept was driven by the magician's social cuing, and that participants utilized the magician's social cues. However, there was a surprising difference in the susceptibility of these two systems to the illusion. On the final illusory throw, most participants claimed to have seen the ball at the top of the screen. The oculomotor system on the other hand was not fooled by the illusion. Figure 2 shows that participants only looked at the top of the screen when the ball was physically present. These results illustrate a remarkable dissociation between what participants claimed to have seen and the way in which their eyes behaved. Whilst their percept was predominantly based on expectations, their eyes were largely driven by the actual visual input. Our results offer a striking example of how the dissociation between vision for perception and for action, well documented in neurological patients [4Goodale M.A. Milner A.D. Separate visual pathways for perception and action.Trends Neurosci. 1992; 15: 20-25Abstract Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (3924) Google Scholar, 7Goodale M.A. Haffenden A. Frames of reference for perception and action in the human visual system.Neurosci. Biobehav. Rev. 1998; 22: 161-172Crossref PubMed Scopus (110) Google Scholar, 8Milner A.D. Goodale M.A. The Visual Brain in Action. Oxford University Press, Oxford1995Google Scholar] and neurologically intact subjects [9Aglioti S. Desouza J.F.X. Goodale M.A. Size-contrast illusions deceive the eye but not the hand.Curr. Biol. 1995; 5: 679-685Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (721) Google Scholar], also translates to more real world situations. We would like to thank the reviewers and Cristiana Cavina-Pratesi for their valuable comments on the manuscript, and Tim Smith for his help with a control experiment. Download .pdf (.1 MB) Help with pdf files Document S1. Supplemental Experimental Procedures Download .mpg (1.09 MB) Help with mpg files Movie 1 Vanishing ball trick pro-illusion condition Download .mpg (1.12 MB) Help with mpg files Movie 2 Vanishing ball trick anti-illusion condition

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