Pulling rabbits out of hats could be the key to
understanding the human brain (Image: Everett
Collection/Rex Features)
1 more image
PROFESSIONAL pickpocket Apollo Robbins
has an uncanny ability to control minds. He can
manipulate people to an extraordinary degree,
drawing their attention away from his thieving
hands as he purloins watches and wallets in
plain sight. These days, Robbins gives his
ill-gotten gains back - he has given up a life of
crime to become an entertainer - but most of his
victims still have no idea they've been robbed
until it's too late.
Watching Robbins at work is like watching
somebody with supernatural powers. Yet, like
his fellow conjurors, Robbins deceives his
targets using nothing more than a finely honed
understanding of human psychology. "I think of
myself as a folk psychologist," he says. "It's all
about developing an instinct for how the human
mind works."
After years of ignoring magic, researchers are starting to realise that the methods magicians use to
manipulate the human mind might hold important insights into how it works. "We're all thinking about the
same questions," says Christof Koch, a neuroscientist at the California Institute of Technology in
Pasadena. "We just come at the problems from different angles."
Magic is all about appearing to break the laws of nature - making solid objects appear or disappear,
sawing human beings in half, reading people's minds, and so on. The laws of nature, of course, are
inviolable, which is why magicians target the human brain instead, packed as it is with glitches and
weaknesses that can be exploited to create the illusion of doing the impossible. And they're brilliant at it:
magic tricks only work if you fool all of the people all of the time.
Magic is all about appearing to break the laws of nature
Cognitive neuroscientists also have a long-standing interest in tricks of the mind, as these are a useful
source of insight into how the brain works. Visual illusions, for example, have taught them a huge amount
about how the brain processe