牛牛资源

People fixate on a false solution to a magic trick even after they recognise this solution is impossible, a scientific study led by 牛牛资源 has shown.

The findings give an insight into how exposure to ideas we know to be false, such as demonstrably fake news, can continue to affect our reasoning capacity.

A report of the research is published in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology.

The researchers investigated a misdirection principle commonly used by magicians called 鈥榯he Theory of False Solution鈥�: this involves magicians giving audiences a potential, yet false, solution to a trick before demonstrating that this solution is wrong.

For the new study the researchers recruited 120 volunteers who were randomly selected to watch one of three versions of a card trick. The trick involved the magician showing the audience the queen of clubs, placing it face down on a pack of cards held in his right hand, then reaching with his left to produce the queen from his back pocket.

In one version of the trick the magician gestured with his closed left hand as if he was palming the queen (鈥榝alse solution鈥�). In another he kept the fingers of his left hand open to show it was empty (鈥榥o false solution鈥�). In the final version he began as if palming the queen but then opened his fingers to show this was impossible (鈥榝alse solution extinction鈥�). Participants were asked after each demonstration how they thought the trick was done.

The experiment showed that gesturing a palming action triggered the false solution in people鈥檚 minds (they thought the magician had palmed the card). More importantly, the researchers found that while with the no false solution trick 87.5% of participants discovered the correct solution (the magician had a duplicate queen of clubs in his back pocket) only 60% managed it with the false solution extinction version.

Dr Gustav Kuhn, Reader in Psychology at 牛牛资源 and co-author of the study, said:

鈥淥ur findings show that being exposed to a false solution can continue to prevent people from reasoning their way to the right answer even after they recognise this false solution is impossible. It鈥檚 as if, having made the effort to construct a solution, people become stuck on it and less able to 鈥榯hink outside the box鈥� and come up with a new solution that abandons their original assumptions.鈥�

The team believes that magic tricks are a good way of exploring 鈥榤ind-fixing鈥� effects that play a role in everyday reasoning. These new findings raise an important issue: that it might be possible for ideas to continue to constrain our ability to discover the truth behind a magic trick or a news story long after those ideas have been exposed as wrong or 鈥榝ake鈥�.

A report of the research, entitled 鈥業t is magic! How impossible solutions prevent the discovery of obvious ones?鈥�, is published in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology.