When magicians perform spectacles that seem to defy the laws of nature, they do so by
manipulating psychological reality. Hence, the principles underlying the art of conjuring are …

Magic tricks have enjoyed an increasing interest by scientists. However, most research in
magic focused on isolated aspects of it and a conceptual understanding of magic …

This chapter offers a possible solution to two main challenges in insight research: how to
assess the occurrence of insight and which tasks to use. As a first step towards a more …

There has been considerable interest in empirical research on epistemic emotions, ie,
emotions related to knowledge-generating qualities of cognitive tasks and activities such as …

Background Conjurors are masters of illusion and deception, and they have developed
astonishing methods for manipulating our experience. Intuitively, the link between magic …

In a well-known magic trick known as multiplying balls, conjurers fool their audience with the
use of a semi-spherical shell, which the audience perceives as a complete ball [1]. Here, we …

Our perceptual experience is largely based on prediction, and as such can be influenced by
knowledge of forthcoming events. This susceptibility is commonly exploited by magicians. In …

Magicians often trick spectators' senses by relying on cognitive limitations. To do so, they
use intuitive but age-old knowledge of human cognition. Research into the relationship …

The performance art of magic allows us to experience the impossible, and this study used a
balancing magic trick to investigate the relationship between participants' enjoyment and …

We studied the influence of knowledge in the interpretation of partly occluded objects. In the
past decades, amodal completion has often been studied by using abstract, meaningless …