This webpage contains the video clips and more detailed descriptions of the examples described in the paper Misdirection and Illsuions.
Misdirection
Misdirection involves manipulating people's attention in order to prevent them from seeing how the trick was done. Kuhn and colleagues investigated the mechanism behind misdirection by developing a special magic trick. Click the following link to download a video clip of this trick.The effect was the disappearing of a lighter and a cigarette; the method was to simply drop the items into the lap. Even though the dropping cigarette was fully visible, misdirection prevented most of the observers from seeing this event. Please not that this trick was specially developed to investigate misdirection scientifically rather than exposing magic.
How the misdirection works
Figure 1 shows a timeline of this trick. The area covered by the dotted circle represents the area of high interest, and the area in the solid circles the areas of low interest. A cigarette is removed from the packet and deliberately placed in the magician's mouth the wrong way round (1 - 7 sec). The magician then pretends to light the cigarette (7). The flame creates a high luminance and attracts attention. Both the spectator and magician then notice this mistake, which raises the interest in the cigarette (8). The magician then turns the cigarette around, while keeping his gaze fixed on the cigarette and the hand manipulating it (8 - 9). During this manoeuvre, the hand holding the lighter is lowered to the tabletop and drops the lighter into the magician's lap. This dropping of the lighter happens in a low area of interest. The disappearing lighter is dramatically revealed by snapping his fingers and waving his hands (11).
The method for making the cigarette disappear relies on it being dropped into the lap. This action is fully visible, with the cigarette dropped from about 15 cm above the table top (11). Surprisingly, most participants did not see this: at the time the cigarette is dropped it is an area of low interest (the other hand is an area of high interest). In this case, the high interest is manipulated by three things: (1) Surprise: the disappearance of the lighter automatically leads to interest, (2) Social Cues: the magician looks at the hand that previously held the lighter, and rotates his body in that direction, and (3) Movement and Sound: At the time of the drop the magician snaps his fingers and waves his hand, thereby attracting attention.
Referencess
Kuhn, G., & Tatler, B. W. (2005). Magic and fixation: Now you don't see it, now you do. Perception, 34 (9), 1155-1161. Kuhn, G., Tatler, B. W., Findlay, J. M., & Cole, G. G. (2008). Misdirection in magic: Implications for the relationship between eye gaze and attention. Visual Cognition, 16 (2-3), 391-405.
Illusions
Several magical illusions rely on an impression of seeing something based on expectation rather than reality. In his vanishing ball illusion the magician pretends to throw a ball in the air when in fact it remains concealed in his hand. Click on this link to view the video clip of this illusion. Kuhn and Land (2006) investigated this by recording participants' eye movements while they watched a video clip of the illusion. Two different versions were used. In one, the magician's gaze followed the imaginary ball towards the ceiling, while in the other he looked at his hand. If effectiveness were mediated by social cues (i.e. where the magician was looking), more participants should recall seeing the ball move towards the top of the screen in the former condition. Indeed, results showed that in this case 68 % of the observers claimed to have seen the ball moving towards the top of the screen, compared to only 32 % in the other condition. Click here to view the video clip of the magic trick where the magician looked at the hand.
Reference
Kuhn, G., & Land, M. F. (2006). There's more to magic than meets the eye. Current Biology, 16 (22), R950-R951.