Wired Magazine: Magic & the Brain

Wired

The most recent issue of Wired magazine contains a story about Teller's collaboration with neuroscientists Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde (previously mentioned here) on the recent Nature Neuroscience Reviews article entitled "Attention and Awareness in Stage Magic." The article also contains a full deconstruction of a Penn & Teller classic, "Looks Simple," wherein a series of normal-looking behaviors involved with lighting and smoking a cigarette are revealed to be anything but normal. It's a perfect demonstration of how so much of our perception is driven by automatic, implicit assumptions:

2 comments:

Unknown said...
12:28 PM

I love them... we gotta get to Vegas at some point and see one of their shows!

Magic Tony said...
5:06 PM

Absolutely. Let's go this summer!

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