The Flushtration Count Illusion: Attribute substitution tricks our interpretation of a simple visual event sequence

Thomas, Cyril; Didierjean, André; Kuhn, Gustav

doi:10.1111/bjop.12306

Cited by 10 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…In the Houdini shackles routine (Figure 5), the frame and the chains may be substituted with a frame with two closed loops attached to it. An interesting potential case of attribute substitution in magic has previously been discussed by Thomas, Didierjean, and Kuhn (2018). One general idea that may explain why the kind of topological tricks described here work so well is that our ability to mentally simulate deformations of flexible objects may be more limited than our ability to mentally simulate the shape-preserving transformations (such as rotations, translations and scalings) that have typically been investigated in research on visual imagery (Carlton & Shepard, 1990;Kirby & Kosslyn, 1990;Shepard & Metzler, 1971).…”

Section: Attribute Substitutionmentioning

confidence: 84%

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Illusions of Imagery and Magical Experiences

Ekroll

2019

i-Perception

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In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the idea that we may gain new insights in cognitive science by studying the art of magic. Here, I offer a first exploratory overview and preliminary conceptual analysis of a class of magic tricks, which has been largely neglected in this pursuit, namely, a set of tricks that can be loosely defined as topological tricks. The deceptive powers of many of these tricks are difficult to understand in light of known psychological principles, which suggests that closer scientific scrutiny may raise interesting questions and challenges for cognitive science. I discuss a number of known and novel psychological principles that may explain why these tricks evoke the strong feelings of impossibility that are characteristic of magical experiences. A profound and detailed understanding of how topological tricks evoke magical experiences remains elusive, though, and more research on this topic could advance our understanding of perception, imagery and reasoning.

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Section: Attribute Substitutionmentioning

confidence: 84%

Section: Preliminary Explanatory Ideasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Illusions of Imagery and Magical Experiences

Ekroll

2019

i-Perception

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“… Thomas and colleagues (2018) reported on the Flushtration Count illusion, a perceptual reasoning illusion that results from people falsely substituting a complex event sequence with a simpler version. We propose that the Criss-Cross force relies on a similar attribute substitution error in which people substitute the complex and unfamiliar cutting procedure with a simpler and more typical one.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The apparent action causation: Using a magician forcing technique to investigate our illusory sense of agency over the outcome of our choices

Pailhès

Kuhn

2020

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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We often fall victim of an illusory sense of control and agency over our thoughts and actions. Magicians are masters at exploiting these illusions, and forcing techniques provide a powerful way to study apparent action causation—the illusion that our action caused the outcome we get. In this article, we used the Criss-Cross force to study whether people can tell the difference between an action which had an impact on the outcome they get and one which has no impact. In the Criss-Cross force, participants are asked to cut to a card, and while they are genuinely free to cut the cards at any position, the cut does not affect the card they are given (i.e., they always get the top card). We investigate the psychological processes that underpin the success of this force. Experiment 1 ( N = 60) showed that participants cannot tell the difference between a forced and a controlled outcome. Experiment 2 ( N = 90) showed that contrary to common magicians’ knowledge, misdirection does not play a role in the success of the force. Finally, Experiment 3 ( N = 60) suggests that rather than misdirection, an attribute substitution error explains why people fail to understand that their action does not have an impact on the outcome they get. Debriefing also shows the importance of participants’ expectations in the perception of the trick, as well as the role of prediction of the outcome in participants’ sense of agency over the events.

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“…Magicians are highly experienced in controlling our attribution processes (Kelley, 1980) and magic tricks provide a useful tool to study these illusory causalities (Kuhn, 2019;Rensink & Kuhn, 2015). A growing number of scientists are using magic tricks to study a wide range of psychological processes, such as attention (Demacheva, Ladouceur, Steinberg, Pogossova, & Raz, 2012;Kuhn & Findlay, 2010;Kuhn & Tatler, 2005;Kuhn, Teszka, Tenaw, & Kingstone, 2016), perception (Kuhn & Rensink, 2016;Thomas & Didierjean, 2016b), problem-solving (Thomas & Didierjean, 2016a;Thomas, Didierjean, & Kuhn, 2018), and belief formation (Lan, Mohr, Hu, & Kuhn, 2018;Mohr, Lesaffre, & Kuhn, 2019). Another promising area of research has focused on magicians' forcing techniques.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The magician’s choice: Providing illusory choice and sense of agency with the equivoque forcing technique.

Pailhès¹,

Kumari

Kuhn³

2021

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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Forcing techniques allow magicians to subtly influence spectators' choices and the outcome of their actions, and they provide powerful tools to study decision-making and the illusory sense of agency and freedom over choices we make. We investigate the Equivoque force, a technique that exploits semantic ambiguities and people's failure to notice inconsistencies, to ensure that a spectator ends up with a predetermined outcome. Similarly to choice blindness paradigms, the Equivoque forces participants to end up with an item they did not choose in the first place. However, here, the subterfuge is accomplished in full view. In three experiments, we showed that the Equivoque is highly effective in providing participants an illusory sense of agency over the outcome of their actions, even after two repetitions of the trick (experiment 2), and using items for which pre-existing preferences can be present (experiment 3). Across all experiments, participants were oblivious to inconsistencies in the procedure used to guide their decisions, and they were genuinely surprised by the experimenter's matching prediction. Contrary to our prediction, the Equivoque force did not significantly change participants' preference for the chosen item. We discuss the results with regards to other illusions of agency (e.g. forcing, choice blindness), failures in noticing semantic inconsistencies (e.g Moses illusion), and issues surrounding choice-induced-preference literature.

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The Flushtration Count Illusion: Attribute substitution tricks our interpretation of a simple visual event sequence

Cited by 10 publications

References 32 publications

Illusions of Imagery and Magical Experiences

Illusions of Imagery and Magical Experiences

The apparent action causation: Using a magician forcing technique to investigate our illusory sense of agency over the outcome of our choices

The magician’s choice: Providing illusory choice and sense of agency with the equivoque forcing technique.

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