Fooled by Our Perceptions

Many people enjoy watching magicians perform magic acts and seemingly do the impossible. In many of these acts, magicians use sleight of hand, trickery, and special tools. There are, however, other occasions in which audience perceptions are used to make them see things differently. This exploits people's tendencies to see things based on their expectations and prior experience. One of these is perceptual readiness, the tendency for people to see what they expect or want to see. This article describes an exercise that illustrates that perceptions can be misleading.