Challenging magicians’ intuitive insights: The role of audience participation in experiencing a magic trick.

Magic is a performance art that relies on tricking the spectator’s mind into experiencing things that seem impossible. Experience in performing these tricks in front of live audiences provides magicians valuable insights into how spectators experience such tricks. However, most of these assumptions have not been empirically tested. Three widely held assumptions were selected: active participation increases the sense of wonder that participants experience, naming a card feels freer to the participant than physically selecting a card from a deck, and a trick that happens in the spectator’s hand is more impressive than if it happens elsewhere. To validate those assumptions, we asked 201 magicians about their insights on performing magic. Data from our experimental studies did not support magicians’ assumptions about how magic is experienced. Magic that happened in the participant’s hand was not viewed as more impossible or engaging than when it happened elsewhere. Also, active participation did not increase enjoyment but increased confusion. Interestingly, contrary to magicians’ insights, we observed that participants felt that selecting a card was felt as being freer than naming a card. We discuss these findings in light of the sense of agency participants experienced over their own thoughts and behaviors. These findings provide interesting insight into how the art of magic is experienced and pave new avenues into the study of the sense of agency over one’s thoughts and behaviors.