EXTENDED ESSAY
How does magic deceive its audience?
Candidate Name: Jiaming Zeng
School Name/IB Code: Germantown High School
Advisor: Dr. Hu
Subject: Psychology
Word Count: 3,018
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Table of Contents
Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………………3
Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………..4
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………..5
Content…………………………………………………………………………………………….6
The Deceptiveness of Magic………………………………………………………………6
The Vulnerable Audience………………………………………………………………..10
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………….12
Works Cited.……………………………………………………………………………………..15
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Abstract
From the time of the Greeks to the modern age, magic has always bewitched its audience.
When a mouse magically appears from a magician’s hat, the audience gazes and gasps at this
unbelievable feat. No explanation seems possible; the mouse must have been conjured up by
magic. The audience blindly believes in the tricks of the magician, even though science proves
that such an act violates the rules of physics. To understand the logics behind this, the essay will
investigate the following question: How does magic deceive its audience?
To thoroughly examine this topic, the essay discusses the history of magic, the techniques
used to deceive the audiences, and the psychological susceptibility of the audience. The
techniques discussed originate from the publications of scientists who have been investigating
the science of magic for years. Data and images are cited from the reports of recent experiments
in the field. This essay is comprised of the perspectives and researches of scientists from 1888 to
the present.
After a careful investigation of the history, the techniques used, and the psychology of the
audience, the essay concludes that though the techniques matter, the psychological state of the
audience is more essential to the success of the magic trick. If one refuses to believe physical
laws can be violated, one will never believe in magic. The ancients believed in magic because of
their need to find order in the world they did not understand. People of the modern era believe in
magic because it brings excitement to the orderly world that has become disenchanted. Different
generations have different psychological needs, but they all sustain the growth of magic.
Word Count: 273
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Acknowledgements
Special thanks to Dr. Hu, my advisor, for helping and advising me in the writing of this Extended
Essay. He provided me with extremely helpful ideas in the formulation period of the essay, and
also assisted me with the editing.
Special thanks also to Ms. Jackson, my English teacher, for giving me deadlines, explaining to
me the idea of the extended essay, and pushing me through the assignment when I was
discouraged.
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Introduction
The magician displays to the audience an empty cabinet. A lady walks into the cabinet,
and the doors are closed. The magician smiles mysteriously and snaps his fingers. He then opens
the door, and to the spectators’ amazement, the lady has disappeared into thin air. Mysteriously,
the magician closes the doors, snaps his fingers, and opens the doors again. The lady has just
magically reappeared inside the cabinet. The spectators cheer as the magician and the lady bow
off stage. This spectacular phenomenon is commonly referred to as magic, a word that entices
interest with its mere sound. In fact, if one types the word “magic” into YouTube, the screen will
pop up with list after list of videos with views up to one million (YouTube n.p.). Ever since the
time of the first civilizations, magic has existed under a veil of mystery and secrecy. However,
what is magic, and what does this alluring word really mean?
The word magic initially meant “priestcraft” (Carus ix). In ancient times, the business of
a priest (magus in Latin) consisted of “exorcising, fortune-telling, miracle-working, and giving
out oracles” (Carus x). As the business of a priest gained more respect, the word “magus” gained
another meaning: “a wise man endowed with supernatural powers” (Carus x). Altho ugh the
business of the priest did not survive long, the word “magus” did. Moreover, the word’s
definition has expanded and “magus” evolved over the years to the word “magic.” Magic,
according to the Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, is now defined as “the art of producing illusions
by sleight-of-hand” (“Magic” n.p.). Comparing the two definitions, one notices the striking
similarity. In fact, the definition of magic has barely changed at all. As some words fluttered into
obscurity and others had their meanings turned around completely, the definition of magic has
remained the same for thousands of years. That single word, with all its mysteries and allure, has
bewitched human beings ever since the ancient civilizations of the Greeks and Romans. However,
what
is
it
about
magic
that
has
5
deceived
humans
for
generations?
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The Deceptiveness of Magic
Magic, stripped of all its mysteriousness, can simply be called “creating illusions.” The
purpose of magic is to create an illusion where all the rules of physics seem to fail so that the
only explanatio n remaining seems to be “magic.” In general, these illusions can be divided into
the following types: visual illusions, optical illusions and cognitive illusions. Visual illusions,
also known as sensory illusions, occur when the object perceived does not match the object in
reality (King 871). The brain compresses and edits visual information according to assumptions
and past knowledge, leaving the spectator with a “subjective perception” (King 871). Optical
illusions involve the manipulation of light through reflection and refraction to deceive the eye
(King 871). With the use of mirrors and special lighting, magicians can make something
disappear or morph into something else (Amlani 352). A famous example of optical illusions is
the magic trick seen in the introduction of this paper, where a lady disappears inside a cabinet
only to reappear again later. The key to this trick is the two mirrors built inside the cabinet
(Triplett 459). When the doors close, the lady pulls the two mirrors towards her until they meet;
the reflections on the mirror create the illusion of an empty box while the lady hides safely
behind it (Triplett 459).
Optical and visual illusions are illusions caused by the manipulation of devices; however,
what really hold the audience spell-bound are cognitive illusions, which allow the magicians to
trick the audience without props. Cognitive illusions involve the manipulation of “higher levels
of cognitive functio ns, such as attention and causal inference” (King 871). Cognitive illusions
are frequently utilized by sleight-of-hand experts; with a false move, they can cover the true
action and create an illusion that will fool the brain. For example, in the well-known vanishing
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ball illusion, the magician throws the ball into the air several times, and, on the third attempt, the
ball disappears in mid-air. In reality, the ball is simply palmed by the magician. The trick, once
revealed, shocks the audience with its simplicity. Some might ask, “How are we even deceived
by these tricks?” Yes, indeed. How are we deceived?
Contrary to popular belief, the secret of magic lies not in “trade secrets,” “workshop
devices,” and “manipulation mechanisms,” but in an “order,” a kind of unity and consistency
(Maskelyne n.p.). For everything the spectators’ experience, there is a cause and an effect, the
cause usually preceding the effect. In magic, however, the order that the audience is familiar with
is replaced with the “order” of magic, where the magician disturbs the correlation between cause
and effect to confuse the audience (King 876). To achieve this, most magicians actually rely on
techniques such as misdirection and misinformation to manipulate and divert the spectators’
attention (Amlani 349).
Misdirection is a technique magicians utilize to draw “attention away from a secret
action” (King 872). There are two types of misdirection, overt and covert. In overt misdirection,
the magician directs the spectator’s gaze away from the action (King 872). While in covert
misdirection, the magician hides the action without redirecting the spectator’s gaze (King 872).
In the realm of magicians, covert misdirection is generally considered more elegant for it hides
the object from the spectator’s eyes while in plain view. Recent scientific studies have offered
insights into the mechanisms of covert misdirection.
After a series of scientific studies, psychologists have concluded that the magician’s feats
are achieved through inattentional blindness and change blindness. Cha nge blindness is the
failure of someone to look at something and not notice that something has changed (King 873).
For example, a dramatic change can be overlooked if it occurs during “a transient interruption,”
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such as a blink of the eye (King 873). Inattentional blindness is when one stares at something,
yet does not perceive it (King 873). Two scientists, Simons and Chabrisk, set up a classical
example of inattentional blindness. A group of people is asked to record the number of times the
members of a basketball team make a pass (King 873). While concentrating on the task, most
observers fail to notice that a man in a gorilla suit walked across the center of the basketball
court and beat its chest (King 873). To further explore the mechanism behind inattentional
blindness, psychologists and magicians collaborated to conduct the Cigarette Drop Experiment.
Videos stills of the experiment are shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. These video stills shows the magician at the second when he drops the cigarette.
The white dots represent the focus of the spectator’s attention during that time of the
cigarette drop experiment. Most of the spectator’s eyes focus on the lighter and the
magician’s head, thereby missing the cigarette drop performed by the other hand (Cole
398).
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In the experiment, two groups – one informed and one uninformed – watch a videotaped
magic trick of a disappearing cigarette where the cigarette disappears through a drop in plain
view. Then the groups are asked who notices the cigarette drop. The results of the experiment are
recorded in Table 1.
First Trial
Second Trial
Table 1 Cigarette Drop Experiment [1]
Informed Group
Uninformed Group
• 2 of 10 detected the cigarette
• 0 of 10 detected the cigarette
drop.
drop.
• All looked at similar locations.
• All looked at similar locations as
informed group.
• All detected the cigarette drop
• All detected the cigarette drop
• All looked at similar locations
• All looked at similar locations as
as first time.
first time.
[1] Tatler 1156-1158
Looking at the above data, one notices that both groups looked at similar locations in
both trials. While only two out of twenty people noticed in the first trial, all twenty noticed in the
second trial. Therefore, it can be concluded that the trick is done not through pure retinal
misdirection, but the manipulation of the spectator’s attention (Tatler 1159). By directing the
audience’s attention to the object in his other hand, the magician was able to drop the cigarette
unnoticed by 90% of the audience. Furthermore, other studies have shown that only part of the
information people perceive enter their consciousness, proving that magicians can really “hide”
things from the spectator’s gaze (Amlani 349). Though one’s eyes are fixed on an object, it does
not mean one will be aware of the object, especially when the person is occupied by “an
[attention] demanding task” such as a magic trick (Cole 392).
Another technique, used more frequently in card tricks, is forcing. Forcing is when the
magician makes a highly-controlled choice seem like a free choice (Amlani 352). For example, a
person is asked to choose any number below ten. However, if a magician wishes her to choose a
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specific number, like seven, he can run over the other numbers quickly and dwell on “seven” a
bit longer, directing attention to “seven” and increasing the probability of its being chosen
(“Psychology” 772). Likewise in card tricks, when the magician asks a spectator to choose a card,
he may dwell on a card or shuffle the deck in a specific way so that the spectator ends up
choosing the pre-determined card.
Misdirection and forcing are not the only techniques magic has utilized to deceive
humans for generations. As demo nstrated by the aforementioned experiment, misdirection fails
after the second time. Magicians must do something else that will make the spectators forget
what they saw and never figure out the secret to the trick. That leads to another method
magicians use called the misinformation effect. Cognitive science defines the misinformation
effect as a “tendency for misleading information presented after the event to reduce one’s
memory accuracy for the original event” (King 875). During the trick, magicians use social cues
such as gaze, verbal communication, body language, and comedy to reduce or increase the
audience’s attention focus at certain critical moments (King 875). In the Vanishing Ball Illusion,
when the magician palmed the ball, his eyes looked in mid-air, suggesting the position the ball
should be at. Another example is that the magician may use a simple motion such as a scratch of
the head to hide a secret object. However, because the head scratch is such a seemingly normal
movement, it is often igno red by the audience, and thereby missing the important step to solving
the magic trick. By undermining the importance of some moves, magicians create a false
memory in the mind of the audience that deceives them while minimizing the possibility of the
discovery.
The Vulnerable Audience
Despite all the techniques and thought magicians put into the magic tricks to deceive the
spectators, the success of a magic trick ultimately depends on the spectators. If the spectators
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refuse to believe that the laws of nature can be violated or that supernatural powers exist, they
will not be deceived. The trust of the audience plays an important role in the survival of the
secrets of magic.
In every perception, there are two important factors. One is the nature of the object,
which remains unchanged, and the other is the nature of the audience, which is subjective
(Jastrow 150). Human beings are emotional creatures. Everything we feel or perceive changes
with our very whim. A stomach ache can turn a beautiful day into an oppressive night, and a
lovely birthday present can make a rainy day feel like the shining sun. While waiting for a friend,
two minutes can easily feel like an hour. If we wish to see a long-lost friend, we may see their
features in something as plain as a window drape. What we feel and what we see are deeply
connected with our attention and mood. Likewise, mental perception is subjective. We may see
some objects clearly, ignore others, and even imagine things that are not there at all (Binet 570).
Everything we see or perceive is what we expect or wish to see. By exploiting this aspect of
human nature, magicians continue to deceive us.
Scientists conducted an experiment to further study the effect our subjective perception
have on the successfulness of the magic tricks. Figure 2 is a series of video stills that track the
eye movement of the spectators at each move of the magician. Throughout the entire magic trick,
the spectator’s eyes are focused on the position of the ball. Yet in the last video still, when the
ball supposedly disappeared in mid-air, none of the spectator’s eyes focused above the
magician’s head. Their eyes focused on the magician’s hand or face, where the ball really is.
Although the perception of the eye is objective, the perception of the mind is subjective. 68% of
the spectators report that they saw the ball disappear in midair (Sanders 23-24). As a result, some
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of the audience swears he saw the ball disappear in mid-air, thereby proving the effectiveness of
the misinformation effect in creating false memory that deceives the audience.
Figure 2. The spectator’s eye focus is recorded and plotted according to whether they
focused on the magician’s hand, face, or above the magicians head. At each movement of
the magician, the focus is at the position of the ball (Sanders 24-25).
To deceive us, magicians first win our trust and convince us that the supernatural exists.
Once we are convinced, we see in every movement of the magician the hint of magic and the
existence of supernatural powers. As Jastrow analyzes in his essay, “Little by little, through
neglect…through an unwillingness to mistrust the reports of an excited consciousness, caution is
abandoned, credulity enters…until the wildest and most far- fetched fantastic explanation is
preferred over a simpler one,” we are finally deceived (Jastrow 155). Under the excitement
brought by magic, we may consider the possibility of a ball disappearing in mid-air to be more
probable than the magician palming it. The most scientific deceiver is one who relies the least on
external aids and more on manipulating the audience’s intellect (Jastrow 149). The spectator’s
mental attitude is more important to the magician than all the techniques and secrets they can
master.
Conclusion
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Presently, a question from the introduction of the paper reappears: What is it about magic
that has deceived humans for generations? Why do people give into these mere superstitions and
simply allow the magicians to deceive them? The answer for this question delves into the deep
side of human nature.
Humans believe in the supernatural because of a “deep-seated human desire for equality”
(“Belief” n.p.). The explanation for this statement goes back to witchcraft and mythology.
Witchcraft, mythology, and priest craft are not created so children can dress up for Halloween.
They are created in an attempt to satisfy the human need of being in control of the environment
around them (“Belief” n.p.). Why does water fall from the clouds? Why do leaves turn yellow
during autumn? Why does the sun disappear below one mountain only to reappear hours later on
the other side of the horizon? “We live in a bewildering world where we don’t have a lot of
control, explains Anne-Maria Makhulu, a professor at Duke University, “and we can imagine
doing things through magic that we can’t do as ordinary human beings” (“Belief” n.p.). The
mysteries of the world around us confound and encroach upon us. Therefore, mythology,
witchcraft, and priest craft are created, in an attempt to gain control over these unexplainable
phenomena. If someone can control rain with prayers and waves of their hand, then their power
must match the power of that mysterious unk nown. If someone can make another person
disappear with a wave of a handkerchief, then the surprising phenomena of nature is not so
unpredictable. With the power of the supernatural, with the faith in something greater and better,
humans gain a sense of control over the environment. Everything happening around us is after all,
not so bewildering.
Therefore, magic, as further explained by Makhulu, is just a way of making the world
equal and just (“Belief” n.p.). That is the way of the ancient. In the present, however, the need is
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no longer to explain the impossible. Science has answered most of the ancient’s questions and
has even delved into the mysterious of planets beyond the Earth. In fact, science and technology
have even managed to explain magic. Part of magic’s mysteriousness is its spontaneity. Yet with
high-quality video cameras and slow-motion playbacks, one can disclose the secrets behind
magic tricks. Therefore, it should be considered a widely known fact that magic is merely tricks
that deceive human eyes. So why are people still intrigued with magic, why do those magic
YouTube videos have over one million hits? If one searches “magic revealed” on YouTube, one
will find fewer videos and only half of the number of views as the “magic” search (YouTube
n.p.). People are intentionally allowing themselves to be deceived by the magician’s tricks.
Humans have become so in control of the world around them that they now need magic
for a different reason. “We need enchantment in our lives because our world has become
disenchanted. We need faith that promises something bigger and better than what we have,”
concludes Makhulu (“Belief” n.p.). Although this faith in something greater and better has
ventured away from witchcraft and priest craft, it has not disappeared. It is programmed deeply
into our genes, our nature, and it is precisely this faith that leads us to be deceived by magicians.
When the magician waves his hand and performs something seemingly impossible, we readily
accept it. Because magic provides enchantment to our lives, it adds a sense of thrill to our
ordinary, predictable lives.
Although each generation has different needs, those needs have always been somehow
satisfied by the existence and belief in magic. Despite the amount of work magicians put into
developing intricate techniques to deceive their audience, the psychology of the need for magic
plays an even more important part. Due to this psychological phenomenon, for thousands of
years, magic, though it has evolved, has not died. Magicians continue to deceive audiences
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through a mixture of their well-practiced psychological techniques and by manipulating the
audiences’
psychological
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needs.
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Works Cited
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Cognitive Science 12(2008): 349-354.
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<http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/magic>.
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