Sleights of Mind
Sleights of Mind

Author: Susana Martinez-Conde

Publisher: Profile Books

Published: 2011-02-03

Total Pages: 402

ISBN-13: 1847652956

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What can magic tell us about ourselves and our daily lives? If you subtly change the subject during an uncomfortable conversation, did you know you're using attentional 'misdirection', a core technique of magic? And if you've ever bought an expensive item you'd sworn never to buy, you were probably unaware that the salesperson was, like an accomplished magician, a master at creating the 'illusion of choice'. Leading neuroscientists Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde meet with magicians from all over the world to explain how the magician's art sheds light on consciousness, memory, attention, and belief. As the founders of the new discipline of NeuroMagic, they combine cutting-edge scientific research with startling insights into the tricks of the magic trade. By understanding how magic manipulates the processes in our brains, we can better understand how we work - in fields from law and education to marketing, health and psychology - for good and for ill.

Champions of Illusion
Champions of Illusion

Author: Susana Martinez-Conde

Publisher: Scientific American / Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published: 2017-10-24

Total Pages: 178

ISBN-13: 0374120404

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A collection of visual illusions with explanations of the science behind them, gathered from the Best Illusions of the Year contest. --

The Illusionist Brain
The Illusionist Brain

Author: Jordi Camí

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2024-12-03

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 0691264325

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How magicians exploit the natural functioning of our brains to astonish and amaze us How do magicians make us see the impossible? The Illusionist Brain takes you on an unforgettable journey through the inner workings of the human mind, revealing how magicians achieve their spectacular and seemingly impossible effects by interfering with your cognitive processes. Along the way, this lively and informative book provides a guided tour of modern neuroscience, using magic as a lens for understanding the unconscious and automatic functioning of our brains. We construct reality from the information stored in our memories and received through our senses, and our brains are remarkably adept at tricking us into believing that our experience is continuous. In fact, our minds create our perception of reality by elaborating meanings and continuities from incomplete information, and while this strategy carries clear benefits for survival, it comes with blind spots that magicians know how to exploit. Jordi Camí and Luis Martínez explore the many different ways illusionists manipulate our attention—making us look but not see—and take advantage of our individual predispositions and fragile memories. The Illusionist Brain draws on the latest findings in neuroscience to explain how magic deceives us, surprises us, and amazes us, and demonstrates how illusionists skillfully “hack” our brains to alter how we perceive things and influence what we imagine.

Practical Mental Magic
Practical Mental Magic

Author: Theodore Annemann

Publisher: Courier Corporation

Published: 2012-04-27

Total Pages: 331

ISBN-13: 0486156613

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Outstanding collection of nearly 200 crowd-pleasing mental magic feats requiring no special equipment. Author offers insider's tips and expert advice on techniques, presentation, diversions, patter, staging, more.

How Magicians Think
How Magicians Think

Author: Joshua Jay

Publisher: Workman Publishing Company

Published: 2021-09-28

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1523510919

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Professional magician Joshua Jay's (author of Magic: The Complete Course) brief and fascinating essays offer an inside look at how the very best magicians think about magic, how they practice and put together a show, what inspires them, and the psychology behind creating wonder and being tricked when we expect both, as well as why we seek magic in the first place.

How We Decide
How We Decide

Author: Jonah Lehrer

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published: 2010-01-14

Total Pages: 357

ISBN-13: 0547347480

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The first book to use the unexpected discoveries of neuroscience to help us make the best decisions Since Plato, philosophers have described the decision-making process as either rational or emotional: we carefully deliberate, or we “blink” and go with our gut. But as scientists break open the mind’s black box with the latest tools of neuroscience, they’re discovering that this is not how the mind works. Our best decisions are a finely tuned blend of both feeling and reason—and the precise mix depends on the situation. When buying a house, for example, it’s best to let our unconscious mull over the many variables. But when we’re picking a stock, intuition often leads us astray. The trick is to determine when to use the different parts of the brain, and to do this, we need to think harder (and smarter) about how we think. Jonah Lehrer arms us with the tools we need, drawing on cutting-edge research as well as the real-world experiences of a wide range of “deciders”—from airplane pilots and hedge fund investors to serial killers and poker players. Lehrer shows how people are taking advantage of the new science to make better television shows, win more football games, and improve military intelligence. His goal is to answer two questions that are of interest to just about anyone, from CEOs to firefighters: How does the human mind make decisions? And how can we make those decisions better?

Self-Working Mental Magic
Self-Working Mental Magic

Author: Karl Fulves

Publisher: Courier Corporation

Published: 2012-04-30

Total Pages: 145

ISBN-13: 0486156575

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Sixty-seven sure-fire mental feats to delight and mystify: mind reading with cards, instant ESP, identifying the owners of objects given to you in random order, number prediction, much more. 73 illustrations.

Magic in Theory
Magic in Theory

Author: Peter Lamont

Publisher: Univ of Hertfordshire Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 165

ISBN-13: 1902806506

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A useful manual for any magician or curious spectator who wonders why the tricks seem so real, this guide examines the psychological aspects of a magician’s work. Exploring the ways in which human psychology plays into the methods of conjuring rather than focusing on the individual tricks alone, this explanation of the general principles of magic includes chapters on the use of misdirection, sleight of hand, and reconstruction, provides a better understanding of this ancient art, and offers a section on psychics that warns of their deceptive magic skills.

101 Easy-to-Do Magic Tricks
101 Easy-to-Do Magic Tricks

Author: Bill Tarr

Publisher: Courier Corporation

Published: 2012-04-30

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 0486139859

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DIVIllustrations, simple instructions for performing over 100 tricks, including The Inexhaustible Hat, The Chinese Rings, Steel Through Steel, Fingers That See, much more. /div