Magic of neuroscience Misdirection |
||
This article was adapted from Scientific Amercian Dec 2008 "Magic and the Brain" By Susana Martinez-Conde and Stephen L. Macknik Magicians use the general term misdirection" to refer to the practice of diverting the spectator's attention away from a secret action. In the lingo of magic, misdirection draws the audience's attention toward the "effect" and away from the "method," the secret behind the effect. Borrowing some terms from cognitive psychology, we have classified misdirection as "overt" and "covert." The misdirection is overt if the magician redirects the spectator's gaze away from the method—perhaps simply by asking the audience to look at a particular object. When the Great Tomsoni introduces his lovely assistant, for instance, he ensures that all eyes are on her.
|
||
Inattentional blindness differs from change blindness in that there is no need to compare the current scene with a scene from memory. Instead people fail to notice an unexpected object that is fully visible directly in front of them. Have a look at the video on the right and count how many times the white team pass the ball. Solution Did you notice the gorilla in the view? Now play the video again and watch the gorilla walk past the field of view. Click to hide solution |
|
|
View the video on the right and see if you can see how the trick is done. Can' figure it out? Click here for the solution Is this an overt or covert misdirection? Explain What are the implications of change blindness for eyewitness accounts? Explain how the eyewitness account can be wrong without the eyewitness realising it. |
|
|
The image on the right shows a phenomenon called motion induced blindness. Focus on the green dot. After a few seconds one or more of the yellow dots disappear. Click to read neural adaptation. What do you think is happening here? Will this work if the background was not rotating? A simple explanation may include neural adapataion. If you stare at the image long enough, all structures are imaged on a particular part of the retina. This leads to local neural adaptation on the retina. By adding additional background noise, here the rotation, effectively we bring on more rapidly neural adapation.
Why do you think that moving the background the dots disappear faster than if you stared at a fixed scene? |
||
Continue |