Abstract
A little more than 10 years ago, an odd idea appeared in cognitive science, almost out of thin air. It is probably fair to say that the general public and many young students of psychology were immediately enchanted by it, but that many more seasoned cognitive scientists had a hard time figuring out what to make of it. I think one problem many cognitive scientists had with the idea was that it appeared blatantly obvious. Indeed, the idea had been voiced many times before, even by prominent psychologists, but it never really had any significant impact on cognitive science. Thus, why expect things to develop differently now? Another reservation was probably the suspicion that the idea was “just a trick,” as one might expect when there are conjurors involved. Including the topic of magic and conjuring in cognitive science is clearly a good public-relations trick, because most people tend to find it entertaining and inherently interesting, but many cognitive scientists were probably thinking that was all there was to it. The big question, of course, is whether the study of magic can really advance cognitive science on a more substantial level.
Gustav Kuhn, who back then was one of the major proponents of the idea that cognitive science could be advanced by studying what magicians do and why it works has now published a book which gives a broad and readable overview of the currently rapidly growing field of inquiry called the science of magic. Given that the book is written by one of the leading experts in the field, it can be expected to provide a good indication of what the science of magic can do for cognitive science.
For purposes of education, I think Kuhn’s book will be of great value. It covers a broad range of topics in psychology—from visual perception to aesthetics and gender issues—and connects more dots between the art of conjuring and of academic psychology than anything I have ever read before. There are many popular science books out there that do an excellent job in raising public awareness of what cognitive science is about and why it is interesting, but Kuhn’s book can no doubt compete with most of them. The book is captivating and accessible while also providing a profound introduction to challenging and real scientific questions. The book is clearly an excellent popular science book and I wager that just about any psychology student will find it interesting and useful. Indeed, due to its many clear links to the typical curriculum in an introductory psychology course, I think it may even serve very well as a textbook. An unusual one, perhaps, but an engaging, insightful, and comprehensive one for sure, and I think psychology students could actually learn more from it than from many a standard textbook in general psychology.
But Kuhn’s ambitions go much deeper than just making cognitive science more engaging and accessible for students and the general public. He wants to build a bridge between the art of conjuring and cognitive science to advance both fields. As a young magician, he studied psychology with the aim of improving his understanding of conjuring. Consonant with that, one goal is to improve magic methods through science. In the other direction, he wants to use the art of conjuring to advance cognitive science on a substantial level, and he argues that this ambitious aim is well within reach. One argument is that magical techniques can be (and already have been) used to investigate and provide insights about a range of psychological processes. Another argument is that by studying how magic tricks work, we can discover new and hitherto unknown aspects of perception and cognition. Kuhn and his collaborators have already embarked on the ambitious goal of developing a taxonomy of misdirection based on our current knowledge of perceptual and cognitive processes. This is a nontrivial and daunting project, and as Kuhn himself readily admits, their current taxonomy is only preliminary. With respect to the goal of discovering new aspects of perception and cognition, I think this systematic taxonomic work will be of central importance. By keeping track of and being explicit about what aspects of magic tricks we can explain based on current scientific theories, we also discover what aspects of magic tricks we currently cannot explain. New or revised theoretical explanations will no doubt follow.
A further argument adds further to the plausibility of the claim that the art of conjuring will advance cognitive science. This is that the experiences evoked by magic trick are themselves of central psychological interest, despite being mainly neglected or poorly understood in mainstream cognitive science. For instance, Kuhn argues that “the sense of wonder that people experience while watching magic tricks is unique to magic and of great scientific interest.” I think this is a very important point, but it should be kept in mind that “unique to magic” should not be taken literally, in the sense of “unique to what happens when watching a magic trick.” The sense of wonder is not unique to magic tricks. It is a central and pervasive aspect of human experience, but it can be observed and studied in its perhaps purest form, by focussing on the art of conjuring. In a similar vein, the study of magic provides gives a unique handle on fundamental questions about how people form beliefs. Magical thinking is also a pervasive aspect of human cognition, but by studying the art of conjuring, we can perhaps study it in its purest form and thereby gain insights that are of broad applicability.
Kuhn’s book makes it very clear and tangible that the systematic study of magic is more than just a clever public-relations trick and can actually advance the cognitive science in significant ways. As pointed out by the well-know philosopher of science with the same last name as the author of the current book, the most telling sign of scientific progress is a Gestalt-like switch in perspective. After reading the broad and interesting overview of cognitive science provided by Kuhn’s book on the science of magic, I am left with a sense of a very interesting Gestalt switch of figure and ground. Things that before may have seemed like details in the background take on new and more central significance. To me, this is the perhaps the most convincing and important argument for Kuhn’s claim that the science of magic can advance cognitive science in significant ways.
