Magic Attention And Magic Perception

Within cognitive psychology, the impact of attention on memory and understanding has been widely researched. In the study reviewed, researchers explored how different parts of the attentional network function in response to trickery such as magical illusions. The experiment looked at how people interpreted and explained a magic trick in which a pen disappears. Researchers wanted to know if the alerting and orienting modules of attention are both required to be active for people to understand a magic trick, or if one or the other would lead people to a correct interpretation. Results showed that the both the alerting and orienting response were required for people to be able to accurately describe the mechanisms of the trick and the time it took place. Magicians may already be well-aware of this, as they seem to use people’s limited attentional capabilities to their advantage when performing illusions. This study was well-conducted, and furthered the understanding between how the attentional network functions in regards to common human experiences, like being confused by magic tricks.

Attention is a limited resource. Most of the time, people are …show more content…
Most people have, at some point in their lives, witnessed and been tricked by a magical illusion. The methods appear to appropriately address the question. The sample size was quite large, and even though relying on self-report can be dangerous, it was particularly important to do so in this study because part of what they were looking at was how people reasoned through illusions. By looking not only at if people were correctly able to explain a trick or not, but also at previous knowledge and willingness to change explanations, researchers were not only able to study different aspects of attention, but also how people perceived their own experiences (Demacheva et. al,