<\/strong>A recent study co-authored by Olson, a Simon Fraser University psychology teaching assistant, investigates the mindset behind card magic. It says that while the participant may think they have a free choice of any card, there are a number of patterns suggesting otherwise<\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/strong>For example, the study found that when asked to name a playing card, most people chose only one of four: the ace, queen or king of hearts, or the ace of spades<\/strong>. Unexpectedly, women chose the king of hearts more than men did, and men chose the queen of hearts more than women. The magician\u2019s trick is to exploit these patterns.<\/p>\n <\/strong>The next step, according to Olson, is to apply the findings to a broader field than just magic; to see how the mind works. Understanding how magicians are able to influence people could lead to a better understanding of memory, decision-making and awareness<\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/strong>\u201cWe hope this study will promote more collaboration between psychologists and magicians,” says Olson. “This will help us learn more about magic from psychology, and more about psychology from magic.”<\/p>\n <\/strong>The\u00a0full study\u00a0is available online from the psychology journal,\u00a0Perception<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the Simon Fraser University press release: A magician will have the upper hand because he knows how his trick works. But, according to Jay Olson, the magician might not… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[363,12],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2920"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2920"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2921,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2920\/revisions\/2921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/images\/blogpics\/CardTricks.jpg\" "\\"card")
A magician will have the upper hand because he knows how his trick works. But, according to Jay Olson, the magician might not know why.<\/p>\n