Kuhn and Tatler used an eye-tracking paradigm to examine participants who watched a simple magic trick involving the apparent disappearance of a cigarette and a lighter. By integrating eye-tracking with sleight-of-hand-based stimuli, this experiment arguably marks one of the first scientific examinations of magic to move beyond the domain of observations, reviews, and opinion pieces into formal empirical investigation.
The present study builds upon previous research by introducing a novel paradigm designed to test how magicians can manipulate the way spectators perceive objects in dynamic scenes. While previous studies e. Wundt argued that it was trickery. While Wundt was in the process of establishing the first Experimental Psychology Laboratory at the University of Liepzig, he became embroiled in a debate about the scientific value of investigating alleged supernatural phenomenon.
Magicians have written extensively about the theory and practice of magic e. Misdirection is a particularly elusive term e. To date, most psychological considerations of misdirection have focused almost exclusively on how misdirection can be used to conceal objects and events from spectators e. Existing paradigms tend to focus on how to prevent spectators from detecting ostensibly visible elements of the methods behind magic effects.
These failures to see have been associated with phenomena such as inattentional blindness Kuhn and Tatler, ; Barnhart and Goldinger, and change blindness e. But misdirection does not only involve inducing failures to see, it can also involve inducing misperceptions of illusory objects.
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The one notable exception to this trend of focusing on concealment is the empirical investigation of the Vanishing Ball Illusion. This effect was first introduced into the psychological literature by Dessoir , an early psychologist and amateur magician Whaley, Dessoir described how a magician might induce the misperception of an illusory object — by tossing an orange into the air two times, then secretly dropping the orange into his pocket while pantomiming a third toss with his empty hand.
Triplett conducted actual informal experiments with schoolchildren, in which he performed a similar trick using a tennis ball. About half the children reported that they had perceived the ball rise towards the ceiling and then vanish. Subsequent studies have demonstrated that this magical effect remains relatively robust even without deceptive social cues Thomas and Didierjean, a ; for a broader discussion of the role of social cues in magic see Cui et al. The authors suggested that such vanishing effects could be linked with the ideas of modal and amodal completion — perceptual experiences that are not directly drawn from any sensory modality see also Nanay, ; Barnhart, ; Ekroll et al.
For example, one study Cavina-Pratesi et al. When asked to pantomime the action of picking up an object, control participants made hand motions that were notably different from genuine grasping gestures. In contrast, the fake grasping gestures of the magicians were more kinematically similar to their genuine grasping actions. Such expertise contributes to the deceptiveness of sleight-of-hand performances Phillips et al.
The present study extends previous research on the false transfer method and the Vanishing Ball Illusion by introducing a novel magic trick, adapted by the first author. The Phantom Vanish Trick was created to investigate the idea that participants can form vivid illusory impressions of objects in response to magic performances. In the original method, the magician begins by clearly and openly showing the spectators that he is holding a handful of mixed coins. Then, with his other empty hand, he reaches into the handful of coins and pantomimes the action of taking away a single coin.
The magician does not actually take anything from the handful of coins, but he does falsely verbally indicate to the spectators that he has taken one of the coins. Finally, the magician goes through the pantomime of making the single coin disappear. This trick is effectively a false transfer that depends both on the convincingness of the pantomime and also on the spectator not being able to count the original handful of coins.
The Phantom Vanish Trick streamlines this idea by eliminating the handful of coins altogether. The magician simply pantomimes the actions of presenting an object and making it disappear. A real object is never presented at any point during the trick. Additionally, in the current experiment, the Phantom Vanish Trick was presented in the context of a silent video, meaning that the magician was not able to use false verbal information to mislead the spectators. This is an extension of previous experiments that have shown that people may falsely infer the illusory motion of an object.
Similarly, Cui et al. Proponents of ecological theories of perception have made strong predictions about the potential for healthy adults to misperceive objects. Gibson asserted that it is impossible to induce the false visual perception of an object where none exists barring optical illusions or pharmacological or psychiatric considerations. I do not mean the virtual object in a mirror, or a pictured object behind the picture, or a mirage in the desert air, but a hallucinated object, a thing for which no invariants are present in the ambient light even when the presumably drugged or diseased observer walks around it.
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If it is true that the absence of all structure in the light specifies air, i. While ecological theorists assert that human phenomeno logical experience is derived directly from bottom-up sensory information, inferential theorists e. Thus, if participants do report the presence of objects after viewing the Phantom Vanish Trick, this would support an inferential theory of human visual perception. Such reports would imply that top-down information, in this case, the strong expectation that the object is present, is subjectively indistinguishable from veridical sensory information.
In other words, participants will have the experience of seeing an object even though it is not presented because they think that it ought to be there. Based on informal observations of professional magic trick performances, as well as previous studies of sleight-of-hand magic tricks and pantomimes e. The third possible outcome was that some participants would fail to experience the PVI, and they would simply provide a veridical report of the events shown in the video. Participants were recruited to take part in the study online see Woods et al.
All participants self-reported as having normal or corrected-to-normal vision and no history of neurological illness or injury. Participants were tested following a protocol approved by the University of Oxford Research Ethics Committee, and in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the Declaration of Helsinki. The study was conducted online using Adobe Flash-based Xperiment software. Stimuli consisted of a total of 22 videos. All of the videos were silent, to control for the fact that participants would be watching on their personal devices with varying audio capabilities.
There was only one version of each of these two videos, and they were shown to every participant. There were three types of magic trick videos: Video 3, Non-Magic Control. There were 20 videos because each of these four types of videos Miscellaneous, Vanish, Appearance, and Non-Magic Control was performed with five different objects: See Table 1 for the number of participants in each of the five object conditions, and Figure 2 for an illustration of the five different object conditions.
Number of participants in each of five different object conditions. Five different object conditions were used in the experiment. In the first four videos of the five-video sequence, participants only ever saw one of the five objects — silver coin, red ball, poker chip, silk handkerchief, or crayon. In Video 5 there was no object presented. Participants watched a five-video sequence that was presented in an order designed to approximate a routine that might be performed within the context of a magic show. See Figure 3 for a breakdown of the five-video sequences that were possible with each of the five different object conditions.
In all of the videos, a brass cup was visible on the table to the left of the magician. The cup was a receptacle for the objects. The first four videos in the sequence which always showed an object were intended to establish an expectation that the magician would take an object out of the cup, while the fifth video which did not show an object served as the critical video.
See Figure 4 for an illustration of a five-video sequence. The complete set of videos can be viewed online 3. Participants were presented with a five-video sequence — Video 1: Miscellaneous Trick; Video 2: Vanish Trick; Video 3: Non-Magic Control; Video 4: Appearance Trick; Video 5: The first four videos depicted a magician performing with a single object — either a silver coin Condition 1 , a red ball Condition 2 , a poker chip Condition 3 , a silk handkerchief Condition 4 , or a crayon Condition 5.
The object varied for participants, so that one group of participants watched a five-video sequence involving a silver coin Condition 1 while another watched a five-video sequence involving a red ball Condition 2 , etc. The order of the tricks in the five videos that constituted a video sequence was intended to approximate a routine from a magic show. An illustration of a five-video sequence, as viewed by a participant.
Note that participants in Object Conditions 2—5 also watched similar five-video sequences involving different objects. Regardless of which object condition the participants were in for Videos 1—4, the Phantom Vanish Trick Video 5 was identical for every participant. Videos 1, 2, and 4 were presented as magic tricks.
They were designed to establish that the magician was performing magical actions with the object.
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The tricks were presented so that the methods could not be easily inferred from the video, assuming that the participant did not have prior knowledge of the methods behind magic tricks. Video 1, the Miscellaneous Trick, showed the magician doing something magical with the object e. Video 2, the Vanish Trick, showed the magician making the object seemingly disappear. Video 4, the Appearance Trick, showed the magician apparently producing the object from thin air. Video 3, the Non-Magic Control, served as a manipulation check for demand characteristics.
Participants had been informed that they would be watching a series of magic tricks, which might have led them to describe magic tricks even when the video did not depict a magic trick. Video 3 did not depict any apparent magical or impossible events e. Video 5, the Phantom Vanish Trick, served as the critical video of the experiment.
Could a silent pantomime of a magic trick result in reports of objects where none were presented? This video showed the magician pantomiming the action of removing an object from the cup and then going through the motions of making the non-existent object disappear. Unlike the first four videos, no object was shown in the Phantom Vanish Trick.
Participants were asked to write a description of each video Question 1 and to provide three ratings of how surprising Question 2 , how impossible Question 3 , and how magical Question 4 they found the video. At the end of the experiment, after watching all of the videos, participants were asked to report how interesting they generally considered magic tricks to be Question 5.
The ratings for Questions 2—4 were collected using a series of visual analog scales. For each rating of surprising, impossible or magical , participants were instructed: The ratings for Questions 2—4 for Video 5 were intended to corroborate the written reports i. In summary, the experiment began with the participants being informed, through onscreen written instructions, that they would be watching a series of short less than 30 s videos.
They were told that they would be able to control when the videos started and that, during the experiment, each video could only be played once. Participants then completed the practice trial, and they were given the option to repeat the practice trial or to begin the experiment.
The practice trial included a video, depicting the magician magically transforming one playing card into another, followed by Questions 1—4. Once participants confirmed that they wished to begin the trial, they were presented with a written cue: For each experimental trial, participants were required to answer each question by typing text for Question 1 and by clicking on the visual analog scale slider for Questions 2—4 before they watched the next video in the sequence. This process was repeated until participants had watched all five videos in the five-video sequence and responded to the four questions following each video.
The five five-video sequences differed by the object that was used in Videos 1—4, but Video 5, the Phantom Vanish Trick, was the same for all participants regardless of which object condition they participated in. Please use your mouse to indicate your response on the slider below. Do your best to describe specific actions and events in the order that they occurred. Videos 1, 2, and 4 were designed to be perceived as conventional magic tricks; each video depicted a trick that involved a single effect intended to create an apparent illusion of impossibility. As predicted, participants reported that they found the videos to be both impossible and magical.
Overall, the videos were All participants generated one written report for each of the four videos they viewed, for a total separate verbal reports. Only 34 reports, from 27 separate participants, indicated that the trick was perceived as non-magical:. Video 3, the Non-Magic Control video, was not a conventional magic trick in that it was not designed to create an illusion of impossibility; instead, the magician performed an action that was intended to appear surprising but not to violate any natural or physical laws. As predicted, none of the participants reported seeing anything impossible or magical in the Non-Magic Control video, and importantly, no participant reported the presence of a non-existent object in Video 3.
Some examples of the reports include: Then he waved his hands to the side, and rested his arms on the table afterward. Video 5, the Phantom Vanish Trick, was the critical video of the experiment. He reached into the cup. He makes a hand motion and it disappears.
There were six exceptions, and all six participants reported seeing a coin one participant in Object Condition 2, Red Ball; five participants in Object Condition 4, Silk Handkerchief. For every written report Q1 collected for Videos 1—5, we also collected ratings from the participants for Surprising Q2 , Impossible Q3 , and Magical Q4. See Table 2 for the questions administered to the participants.
These ratings Q2—4 were included in the experimental design to corroborate the written reports for Q1. For Videos 1—4, the written reports Q1 suggested that participants considered the Non-Magic Control Video 3 to be less Impossible and Magical than the magic trick videos Videos 1, 2, and 4. To fit the linear mixed-effects model, the error structure of the residuals need to be normal and heteroskadastic; satisfactory normality was achieved by applying a folded logarithmic transformation of the form: We treated pairings of videos and ratings as fixed effects, such that each of the four videos Videos 1, 2, 3, and 4 was paired with each of the three ratings Surprising, Impossible, and Magical for a total of 12 fixed effects.
Participants were treated as random effects.
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Models were fitted using the nlme package Pinheiro et al. In summary, the ratings Q2—4 corroborated the written reports for Q1, indicating that participants considered the Non-Magic Control Video 3 to be less Surprising, Impossible, and Magical than the magic trick videos Videos 1, 2, and 4. These findings for ratings Q2—4 further support the earlier findings for Q1, and demonstrate that participants were clearly distinguishing between the magic trick videos Videos 1, 2, and 4 and the Non-Magic Control Video 3.
We predicted that the Surprising Q2 , Impossible Q3 , and Magical Q4 ratings from participants who were categorized as having reported experiencing the PVI that is, participants who reported that they had seen an object apparently disappear during Video 5 would be higher than the ratings from participants who were categorized as not having reported experiencing the PVI that is, participants, whose experience could be described simply as watching the magician pantomime an action without an object.
We also predicted that the ratings from participants who were categorized as having reported experiencing the PVI and had also reported a specific object e. To fit the three simple linear regression models, the error structure of the residuals need to be normal and heteroskadastic; satisfactory normality was achieved by applying a folded reciprocal transformation of the form: Models were fitted using the lm package in R R Core Team, For each of the three models, we compared the simple regression model to a model that included four additional covariates.
There were three categorical covariates: The covariates were only included in the model reported if the likelihood test indicated that the covariates significantly improved the fit of the model. Third year students are assigned a Discipline. Though Quentin cannot be assigned one, he and Alice are sorted into the Physical magic group. During the spring semester of their fourth year, they are all sent to Brakebills South in Antarctica, where Quentin and Alice are turned into foxes, and fall in love. Upon graduation, Quentin and the other Physical Kids spend their days and nights in hedonistic pursuits.
While still looking for a purpose, his erstwhile classmate Penny arrives with news about travel between worlds and Quentin discovers that Fillory is real. The group finds magical wonders in Fillory, but they eventually discover The Beast, who is revealed to be Martin Chatwin, the lost eldest child in "The Wandering Dunes", who has sacrificed his humanity in order to stay in the magical world forever.
After a brutal fight, Alice sacrifices herself to kill Martin, Penny loses both of his hands and chooses to remain in an empty city between the worlds, and a gravely injured Quentin is left in the care of a group of centaurs while the others fear that he will never awaken from his coma. Upon awakening many months later, Quentin becomes depressed and disillusioned, especially when Jane, the youngest Chatwin, reveals herself to have been pulling the strings throughout her siblings' and Quentin's stories.
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By using a magical time-traveling device, she finally succeeded in killing Martin by leading Quentin and his friends to the confrontation. Back on Earth, Quentin takes a high-paying non-magical job where he spends his time playing video games. Grossman has publicly discussed his literary influences and has referred to T. White as his "literary mentor", particularly to the influence that The Once and Future King has had on his work. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia.
Norrell , [4] [3] Watchmen , [4] Larry Niven's Warlock stories , [4] and Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories , [3] while the film Highlander helped influence the feel of the novel's world. He consequently replaced its appearance with the similarly themed Neitherlands instead. The review by The A. Club gave the novel an "A", calling it "the best urban fantasy in years, a sad dream of what it means to want something badly and never fully reach it.
The Magicians won the Alex Award , given to ten adult books that are appealing to young adults, and its author won the John W.
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Campbell Award for Best New Writer. In , Fox optioned but eventually declined to order a television adaptation of The Magicians. In July , Syfy greenlit the production of a pilot episode , [12] and ordered a episode first season which aired in January The series ages the characters up to graduate school students and compresses the Brakebills degree to three years.
Most of the events detailed in the novel, the Antarctic trip for instance, appear to happen in Quentin's first year at Brakebills with years in the novel being roughly condensed into semesters in the TV show. Jane Chatwin is involved earlier and more heavily, and Quentin is more formally diagnosed with depression. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article is about the novel by Lev Grossman. For other uses, see The Magicians disambiguation.
Contemporary fantasy High fantasy Parallel universe. List of The Magicians characters. Archived from the original on March 17,