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Vebjørn Ekroll¹, Evy De Bruyckere², Lotte Vanwezemael²

¹Laboratory of Experimental Psychology, University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium; Department of Psychosocial Science, University of Bergen, Norway.

|January 11, 2019

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Magic tricks using amodal completion are more deceptive than those using attentional misdirection. Repeated viewings revealed secrets of attentional tricks but not amodal completion tricks, supporting its cognitive impenetrability.

Keywords:

amodal completion cognitive impenetrability inattentional blindness magic perceptual organization

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Perception

Background:

Magicians utilize psychological principles to create illusions.
Attentional misdirection and amodal completion are key psychological factors in magic tricks.

Purpose of the Study:

To compare the deceptive power of magic tricks based on attentional misdirection versus amodal completion.
To investigate the impact of repeated exposure on the effectiveness of these trick types.

Main Methods:

An experiment was conducted using eight magic tricks: four relying on attentional misdirection and four on amodal completion.
Participants attempted to discern the secrets of each trick after one, two, or three viewings.

Main Results:

Solution rates for attentional misdirection tricks significantly increased with repeated viewings.
Solution rates for amodal completion tricks remained consistently low across all viewings.

Conclusions:

Magic tricks based on amodal completion retain their deceptive power longer than those based on attentional misdirection.
The findings support the hypothesis that amodal completion relies on cognitively impenetrable perceptual mechanisms.