Review History


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Summary

  • The initial submission of this article was received on February 13th, 2024 and was peer-reviewed by 3 reviewers and the Academic Editor.
  • The Academic Editor made their initial decision on March 5th, 2024.
  • The first revision was submitted on March 19th, 2024 and was reviewed by 3 reviewers and the Academic Editor.
  • The article was Accepted by the Academic Editor on April 8th, 2024.

Version 0.2 (accepted)

· Apr 8, 2024 · Academic Editor

Accept

All three reviewers (and I) are satisfied that you have addressed the concerns voiced after the first round of review. I am pleased to accept this for publication at PeerJ. I did notice one lingering typo...Line 326 contains another instance of "Experiencet." I have to assume this was an erroneous find-and-replace scenario. I hope this typo will be cleared up during copy editing.

Thanks for submitting your work to PeerJ!

Best,
Tony Barnhart

[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by Jafri Abdullah, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section #]

·

Basic reporting

All the point I made were addressed and from my point of view the article is ready for publiciation.

Experimental design

All good.

Validity of the findings

Good.

·

Basic reporting

This is the second round of review. I am very satisfied with the authors' revision. They have addressed my major concerns, particularly the theoretical foundation for the hypotheses of this paper. The citations and explanations added in the introduction section help readers, particularly those who know little about magic, understand the rationale of this paper.

Experimental design

The authors have added information to clarify the skill level and the experience of the magicians who performed the trick.

Validity of the findings

It looks good to me.

·

Basic reporting

The authors have done a thorough job at addressing the conveners raised in my review and I am please to let you know that I now recommend the paper for publication.

Experimental design

N/A

Validity of the findings

N/A

Additional comments

N/A

Version 0.1 (original submission)

· Mar 5, 2024 · Academic Editor

Major Revisions

I have received thoughtful reviews from three experts in the field, all of whom have made their reviews public. Reviewer 1 is Gil Greengross. Reviewer 2 is Tong Li. Reviewer 3 is Gustav Kuhn. You will see that the reviewers are generally positive about your piece, but all see areas where the manuscript could be improved. I believe the reviews are clear and that you should be able to address them in a revision. Before diving into the critiques, I do want to note that PeerJ’s editorial criteria place an emphasis on methodological soundness over novelty or impact. Thus, we are not opposed to publishing research demonstrating null effects so long as the research methods were sufficiently rigorous. You will see that Prof. Kuhn has some concerns about the impact of this research. While I share his concerns, those concerns have not shaped my decision on this manuscript. The research methods are sound, even if some of the outcomes were underwhelming.

I found the manuscript to be generally well-written and accessible. However, the reviewers point out a few places where the narrative could be improved. Prof. Li has invited a clearer articulation of the theoretical grounding for your predictions and your choice of measures. I share his desire to have this spelled out more clearly in the manuscript. For example, I am unclear on why one would expect magic exposure to impact scores on the MJT. Central to your handling of the experience of magic is the notion that magic does not invite the suspension of disbelief. Audiences have to know that what they are witnessing is impossible in order to appreciate it as magic. If they believe that what they are witnessing is possible, it is, by definition, not magic (under the current framework). Thus, magic appreciation requires rationality. Why would exposure to magic then reduce rationality when evaluating the likelihood of impossible events becoming possible in the future? The only reason I could imagine this happening is if participants don’t understand that they’re watching magic and somehow come to believe they are watching videos of new technology they don’t understand (a la Michael Carbonaro’s television show). How were the videos framed in your experiment? What did participants *think* they were watching? Similarly, why would experiencing some basic magic impact optimism or satisfaction with life?

Turning to your Results section, I have one request beyond those of the reviewers. In your Discussion, you note that “analyses showed that these correlations [between ERES and LOLS scores] were much higher among participants who had watched the Magic Video rather than the Control Video.” This interpretation seems to be based on an eyeball analysis of the correlations in your table. I don’t doubt the interpretation, but I believe it would be more sound for you to run a regression analysis that predicts LOLS scores from your survey items and your independent variable. Further, reporting of the standardized regression coefficients would give the reader a better sense of how to contextualize each variable in the overall model.

Finally, I request that you add a statement to the paper confirming whether you have reported all measures, conditions, data exclusions, and how you determined your sample sizes. You should, of course, add any additional text to ensure the statement is accurate. This is the standard reviewer disclosure request endorsed by the Center for Open Science [see http://osf.io/project/hadz3]. I include it in every review.

Thank you for submitting your work to PeerJ. I look forward to reading a revision of this manuscript.

Best,
Anthony Barnhart

·

Basic reporting

The paper examines whether watching magic tricks enhance positive attributes compared to watching a control, and if magic performance increases beliefs in impossible events. The study is straightforward, well-written, with clear study rationale and design, and very interesting results. The study is a welcome contribution for the possible effects of magic, shifting from the traditional studies on magic that focus mostly on the underlying psychological mechanisms of the tricks themselves, to the consequences of watching magic.

Background is very thorough, references are adequate, and the overall structure is sound.

Results are very clear but tables are a bit difficult to read and not in APA format. I suggest properly formatting them for ease of read.

Writing is clear but the description of the magic tricks and scales in the method section are a bit difficult to read because the writing is a bit dense and there are no spaces between each trick or scale. I recommend spacing the method section a bit more.

One small clarification. On p.9, line 173. The description of the trick is not very clear. Not sure what experiencet experiences means. Can you clarify?

Experimental design

Design is sound with clear rationale for the use of the various scales. Two small comments:

For the LOL scale, there are technically three negative statements about magic. The last statement is actually positive (“I love watching magicians do tricks.”) and is scored in reverse.

It is not clear how scales are calculated. For example, the authors seem to add the items for the LOL scale, but the original paper averaged them. It doesn’t matter in terms of the results but it would be useful to indicate how scales were calculated.

Validity of the findings

Clear results and an interesting discussion of the findings in light of the relevant literature.

Additional comments

I am wondering if the authors have information about the gender of the participants. It would be interesting to see if the results change depending on gender. As there are very few female magicians, perhaps female audience is less enthusiastic about magic.

·

Basic reporting

Overall, this manuscript is well-written. The topic is intriguing. Although there are studies investigating the influence of watching magic on emotions and well-being, this manuscript adds more insights into the short and long-term influence of magic.

For the introduction section, I think it could be further improved:

One of the emotions the authors try to measure is curiosity. However, the introduction section does not include studies helping readers understand the connection between magic and curiosity. One possible way to talk about this is through the cognitive dissonance elicited by magic and its connection to curiosity. Also, there are some previous studies investigating watching magic and curiosity (e.g., Subbotsky, 2010). The authors may consider adding those related studies to the introduction to help readers see the connection.

Another emotion measured is surprise. I think authors may need to help readers understand the difference between surprise and wonder (or the sense of impossibility).

In the introduction (lines 65-79) section, the author mentioned the influence of watching seemingly impossible events on people’s beliefs in impossibility. Lan et al. (2018) also explored the influence of magic on people’s beliefs in psychological principles. There are some references in this paper that may contribute to this part.

The author also measured the influence of magic on optimism and life satisfaction. Again, could the author provide any theoretical support or any studies to show connections between watching magic and optimism and life satisfaction in the introduction section?

Experimental design

The design is clear and effective. Some clarifications can improve this section.

- Survey Questions: Could the authors provide specific questions/items used by those scales? Providing those items would enhance transparency and help readers better understand the measurement.

- Magician's skill level. The authors may provide information about the skill level and experience of the magician who performed the trick in the video. As the level of impossibility experienced by the audience may vary depending on the magicians’ technique and showmanship, providing the magician’s background (e.g., years of performance) can help better interpret the results. Or, the authors may consider adding links to those videos to this paper that allow readers to assess the performance directly.

- Stimulus videos. In the discussion section, the authors talked about whether the effect of those magic tricks was “strong” enough to produce influence. It would be better to ask the participants to rate the level of impossibility they experienced for the trick they watched. Although this is a little bit similar to the “surprise” measured in the emotional survey, impossibility is more connected to the magical aspect of magic performance. In addition, I am wondering how many participants know the secrets of those tricks, as this may influence the results as well.

Validity of the findings

The statistical analysis is clear and solid. The authors also interpret the meaning of the findings. Could the author provide possible explanations for why people who like magic are more optimistic?

Additional comments

References:

Lan, Y., Mohr, C., Hu, X., & Kuhn, G. (2018). Fake science: The impact of pseudo-psychological demonstrations on people’s beliefs in psychological principles. PLoS One, 13(11), e0207629.

Subbotsky, E. (2010). Curiosity and exploratory behaviour towards possible and impossible events in children and adults. British Journal of Psychology, 101(3), 481-501.

·

Basic reporting

see report

Experimental design

see report

Validity of the findings

see report

Additional comments

I was very excited to review this paper, as it promised to look at a novel and important question, and one that lies close to my heart. The experiment is well designed, and the authors chose an interesting set of measures. The paper is also well written and provides a compelling motivation for the current research question. However, my enthusiasm quickly waned, after reading the results section. The main issue here is that most of the effects that would be of interest did not manifest themselves within this paradigm, or they are too weak to interpret in any meaningful way. The authors point out several important limitations, but without addressing these limitations in further empirical studies, I fear that the findings fail to make a significant contribution to the field. To me, the current paper reads more like an interesting and promising pilot study, rather than a journal article. However, this is a judgement call for the editor.

Specific points

“The current study aimed to explore this topic, and to examine both the short-term and long-term impact of watching magic”. The authors seem to imply that loathing of magic, as measured through the LOL scale equates to people’s long-term impact of watching magic. I am not convinced by this link. “This work is based on the assumption that the more a person reports liking magic, then the more likely they are to seek out opportunities to watch or participate in magic”. This assumption is rather speculative, and there is no evidence to suggest that people who enjoy magic do indeed seek it out. If the paper’s objective is to measure the frequency by which people seek out magic, then this is something that needs to be measured. The LOL scale measures the extent to which people dislike magic, and does not tell us anything about the long term impact of watching magic. It is therefore not clear to me how the current study explores the long-term impact of watching magic.

There are several other recent studies from our own lab that have examined the emotions that different types of magic tricks elicit, and how these emotions correlate with one another (Bagienski & Kuhn, 2023; Kuhn et al., 2023). The authors may want to discuss the current findings in light of these results.

I was surprised that there was no mention of the Subbotsky study (Subbotsky et al., 2010) that examined the impact that watching magical Harry Potter content on creativity.

The results are rather disappointing, and it is difficult to draw clear conclusions about what they mean. The magic videos elicit more surprise, curiosity and excitement, than the control videos, which is not particularly surprising in itself. The second set of results are more interesting in that the is a significant correlation between LOL scores and the emotional responses, but again this result is not ground breaking in itself. The significant correlations between the LOL scores and the SOM and SWLS are hard to interpret, as the effects are relatively weak, and do not hold up for the individual sample. It is therefore hard to draw any firm conclusion based on the findings reported here.


Signed: Gustav Kuhn

Bagienski, S. E., & Kuhn, G. (2023). A balanced view of impossible aesthetics: An empirical investigation of how impossibility relates to our enjoyment of magic tricks. I-Perception, 14(1), 20416695221142537. https://doi.org/10.1177/20416695221142537

Kuhn, G., Pailhes, A., Jay, J., & Lukian, M. (2023). Experiencing the improbable: How does the objective probability of a magic trick occurring influence a spectator’s experience? Decision. https://doi.org/DOI: 10.1037/dec0000220

Subbotsky, E., Hysted, C., & Jones, N. (2010). Watching films with magical content facilitates creativity in children. Percept Mot Skills, 111(1), 261-277. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&dopt=Citation&list_uids=21058605

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