Table of Contents
1 The Art and Science of the Impossible 1
The Art of the Impossible 2
Where We Will Go in This Book 6
The Grammar of Magic 7
Your Journey with Us 7
Part I The Basics 11
2 Living in Illusion: The Human Brain and the Visual Pathway 13
We Live in Illusion 13
The Brain, Its Cells, and Its Structure 15
Neurons 17
Neural Networks 18
The Visual Pathway 20
The Photoreceptors: Cones and Rods 22
What the Brain Sees 24
The Beginning of Art 25
Color and Luminance 26
The "What" and "Where" Pathways 27
The Expression of Emotions and the Act of Seeing 30
3 The Conception of Reality: We Are Our Memories 32
Perception of the Outside World 32
The Creative Processes of Our Brains: Feeling, Attending, Perceiving 33
How the Brain's Memories Work 35
Sensory Memory 37
Short-Term Memory 38
Long-Term Memory 39
Emotions 39
Feelings 40
Emotional Memories 41
Part II The Mechanisms 43
4 We Build an Illusion of Continuity 45
The Limits of the Brain and the Illusion of Continuity 45
The Particularities of the Field of Vision 46
The Various Types of Scanning Movements 48
The Image Fusion Process 49
The Illusion of Continuity and Cinema 50
The Illusion of Continuity and Sound 51
The Illusion of Continuity: A More General Process 52
Change Blindness 52
Prestidigitation: Is the Hand Faster than the Eye? 56
Slow Magic 57
5 Magic and Contrast: The Key to It All 59
The Funny Thing about Magic 59
Contrast and the External Life of a Magic Effect 60
We See Relatively, Not Absolutely 61
Contrast Detectors 64
Contrast Depends on Context 66
Contrast in Magic 69
Avoiding or Reducing Contrast in Magic 70
Strategies and Resources during the Presentation of a Magic Trick 71
Presensory Manipulations 75
6 We Filter and Process Only What Is Useful to Us 77
The Attention Filter 77
Attention and Awareness 78
The Concept of "Misdirection" in Magic 79
Focal Attention 80
Exogenous Capture of Attention and Open Diversion 81
The Power of Nonverbal Communication 85
Managing the Gaze 86
Priority Movements 88
Endogenous Capture and Covert Deviation 89
Divided Attention 90
Temporary Control or Continuous Direction of Attention 95
Music as a Tool to Transmit Emotions and Synchronize Attention 97
Deactivation of Attention in Magic 98
The "Deconstruction" of a Magic Trick 99
7 Perceiving Is a Creative Act, but Everything Is Already in Your Brain 101
To Perceive Is to Interpret 101
The So-Called Inverse Problem of Vision 103
Bottlenecks in Brain Processing 106
The Brain Is Slow 108
Human Beings Anticipate the Future 111
Magic as the Art of the Unexpected 113
Developing Hypotheses Automatically: Amodal Perception in Magic 114
8 To Remember Is to Rebuild 118
The Function of Memories 118
Explicit (Declarative) Memories 119
Stages of Long-Term Memory Formation 121
Memories Recorded in Especially Emotional Circumstances 122
We Need to Forget in Order to Remember 125
The Reconstructive Character of Memory Evocation 126
False Memories 128
Memories and Memory Manipulation in Magic 131
Techniques for the Promotion of Forgetfulness in Magic 132
Disinformation and False Solutions in Magic 133
Long-Term Memories of a Magic Show 136
9 The Undervalued Unconscious Brain 139
The Brain Never Rests 139
Attention and Awareness 140
Attention without Consciousness 141
Unconscious Perception in Magic 142
Implicit Memories 143
Subtle Conditioning: The Case of Priming 146
Priming in Magic 147
10 The Magic of Decision-Making 149
The Dual Functioning of the Brain 149
Do We Make Expert Decisions? 151
Judgments in Situations of Uncertainty and Instinctive Decisions 152
Types of Forcing 155
Taking a Risk 158
Word Maps 160
The Framing Effect in Magic 162
Reflective Decisions 163
Reasoning in Hindsight in Magic 164
Part III The Results 167
11 The Magic Experience and Its Audiences 169
Experiencing the Illusion of Impossibility 169
The Emotions of the Magic Experience 170
The Unwilling Suspension of Disbelief 171
The Magic Outcome as Cognitive Dissonance 172
The Validity of the Illusion of Impossibility 174
Magic and Superpowers 175
Magic in the Twenty-First Century 176
Is Live Magic in Front of Spectators the Best Magic? 178
Magic Audiences 178
Magic for Children 181
When Magic Provokes the Spectators 184
Magic for Magicians 185
The Popularity of Magic 187
12 Wrapping Up: Scientific Research and Magic 191
The Science of Magic 191
Is There a Scientific History Related to Magic? 192
How Could Magic Contribute to Neuroscience? 197
Acknowledgments 201
Notes 203
Bibliography 213
Index 227
