Magic, Randi, Teller, Neuroscience and SMIDSYs

[andygates]

I came across this paper in Nature by, among others, James Randi and Teller (of Penn & Teller).  It talks about the neuroscience of distraction and how stage-magic exploits those phenomena to baffle and amuse.

Attention and awareness in stage magic: turning tricks into research : Article : Nature Reviews Neuroscience

The same sort of "paying attention to a scene" stuff occurs while driving.  There's a "scan blindness" which occurs when drivers sweep their vision across and back, which can be fooled by cyclists at junctions.  And really what they're saying in the paper is that you can stare right at a thing and really really concentrate on it and still be made to look an ass. 

Which ultimately means this: even the perfect driver -- the one who is alert, skilled, conscientious and caring in a perfect vehicle in perfect conditions near a cyclist in optimal position, spotlit from Heaven with a beam of pure arclight -- even that driver can screw up and SMIDSY you.

[redshift]

Hell, we're humans, after all.  Very little of what we 'see' is actually real, and what little is real is augmented, or the gaps filled in, by the brain, doing its pattern-recognition thing - 'this one? no... this one? no... this one? nearly...that'll do - it's close enough that I know what the rest looks like.'  Stage magic has always exploited these things.  I once had to transfer some close-up sleight of hand stuff, and it took three frame by frame runs for me to understand exactly how it was done - at anything other than dead-slow, my brain just filled in the blanks.

The whole slew of examples - from looking at a clock's second hand and wondering why it stopped for more than a second, through to
GREEN   BLUE   RED
conspire against us all the time.  Witnesses are notoriously unreliable for just such reasons.

[Pingu]

Remember the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/JX2BJC12uXQ&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/JX2BJC12uXQ&rel=1</a>?

[redshift]

It's mentioned in the paper. 

Another classic example of this kind of thing:  A chap is working on a repair bench, soak testing an amplifier.  He receives a shock from the exposed mains in the chassis, which trips out the supply and causes his colleagues to come and check he's ok.  After a brief period, when one of them asks him 'What happened?' he says 'Well, I was just doing x, and I touched that...'  Bzzzt!  it happens again.   

We're not such clever animals, really.

[goatpebble]

Andy, that's good stuff!

Randi is a red rag for the woo crowd, and I have often thought of him when it comes to the dangerous 'common sense' ideas that most of us carry around!

Try to explain to your nearest and dearest why they should not always trust what they see or 'feel'...

[scott]

Randi is a red rag for the woo crowd

Randi was the subject of a very interesting documentary here several years ago that included his efforts to debunk Russian "mystical healers," et al.

But, GP--what do you mean by "woo crowd"?    (I assume "red rag" is meant as in "in front of a bull"...)

[goatpebble]

Randi is a red rag for the woo crowd

Randi was the subject of a very interesting documentary here several years ago that included his efforts to debunk Russian "mystical healers," et al.

But, GP--what do you mean by "woo crowd"?    (I assume "red rag" is meant as in "in front of a bull"...)

Sorry to have not seen your reply earlier. 'Woo' is just a rather clumsy cover-all word for those who indulge in 'magical thinking'.

You can stretch it as far as you want. People who talk about 'energy', crystals, herbalists, homeopathy, etc.

[scott]

[People who talk about 'energy', crystals, herbalists, homeopathy, etc.

Oh, *that* woo crowd. As in woo^oooooo_oooooooo^ooooooooo   

[rae]

I had the dashboard stolen out of my car once.   The whole dash, leaving just the bulkhead and a load of wires.   However, when I got into the car, it was still there.  I sat down, reached for the ignition, and at that point the bit of my brain that was doing the interpretation of what my eyes were seeing won the competition, and, shazam, the dash vanished in front of me.   Very weird. 

I've also noticed there are junctions where I am at very high risk of "not seeing".   There's one on the way back from work, and after a few close calls, I've learnt to scan them very carefully.  Some combination of background and shape conspires to render cars invisible.

[rower40]

Campag Ergopower levers.

("What?" I hear you cry.  Don't worry, I'll connect it all up soon!)

Gear change lever is inside the curve of the brake lever, so has to move forward/backward when the brake lever is applied.
Find an empty stretch of road/path, and reach hands round behind brake lever, and pull hard on the gear lever, as though braking.

It'll feel like you're speeding up.  Muscles/nerves in your arm are ready to slow down and take the extra deceleration force through the arms, but it doesn't happen, so your brain tells you that you're getting faster.