That is fundamentally the purpose of this paper with Teller. He had an intuition that a specific maneuver he developed for the cups and balls trick was the strongest method he knew of to misdirect spectators because it included attending to a falling object. The idea was that falling objects are more salient than other items and therefore draw attention more strongly.
The study discovered that, in fact, other things that he did with his hands were more powerful at drawing attention, which Teller hadn't realized. So our scientific methods can contribute to developing principled effects in magic as they can be more accurate than even an expert's intuitions. That's not surprising in that scientists have known for decades that their own intuitions about psychology and neuroscience only carried them so far and, in the end, experimentation was required to really know if something was true. But we hope that magicians see it's value now, as we've shown that even a signature trick by one of the world's to performers can be informed by unbiased experimentation.
Moreover, magicians have begun to use specific demonstrations developed in cognitive science as part of their shows. For example, Penn & Teller a change blindness demonstration loosely based on Chabris & Simons's sublime gorilla illusion. Also, a magician in Spain named Miguel Angel Gea has developed an entire routine based on cognitive effects that he learned from us during our collaboration with him in neuromagic.
That us fundamentally the propose of this paper with Teller. He had an intuition that a specific maneuver he developed for the cups and balls trick was the strongest method he knew of to misdirect spectators because it included attending to a falling object. The idea was that falling objects are more salient than other items and therefore draw attention more strongly.
The study discovered that, in fact, other things that he did with his hands were more powerful at drawing attention, which Teller hadn't realized. So our scientific methods can contribute to developing principled effects in magic as they can be more accurate than even an expert's intuitions. That's not surprising in that scientists have known for decades that their own intuitions about psychology and neuroscience only carried them so far and, in the end, experimentation was required to really know if something was true. But we hope that magicians see it's value now, as we've shown that even a signature trick by one of the world's to performers can be informed by unbiased experimentation.
Moreover, magicians have begun to use specific demonstrations developed in cognitive science as part of their shows. For example, Penn & Teller a change blindness demonstration loosely based on Chabris & Simons's sublime gorilla illusion. Also, a magician in Spain named Miguel Angel Gea has developed an entire routine based on cognitive effects that he learned from us during our collaboration with him in neuromagic.