Forcing techniques & Neuroscience

Abstract

Although we might think our decisions determine the final outcome of certain situations, magicians show us this is not always the case. Over the centuries, magicians have developed numerous forcing techniques to determine the final outcome of certain decisions that are perceived as “free choices'' by the spectators. It has been hypothesized that forcing techniques could be of extreme value to explore both decision making process and free will. Unfortunately, the knowledge of forcing techniques is restricted to magicians, who usually study them from a practical perspective instead of a psychological one. As this hinders the transfer of knowledge between the fields, in this work, I present an accurate explanation of the general concept of “forcing technique” together with a discussion of their possible applications to neuroscience. Moreover, I present a framework of cognitive processes exploited by forcing techniques to illustrate they are complex mechanisms that different branches of neuroscience can study. This work provides a background for the application of this ecological tool in the neuroscience of decision making and the sense of free will.