Are magicians specialists at identifying deceptive motion? The role of expertise in being fooled by sleight of hand.
Abstract In this study we performed two common sleight of hand effects and their real transfer counterparts to non-magicians and to magicians with a diverse range of experience practicing magic. Although, as a group, magicians identified the sleights of hand as deceptive actions significantly more than non-magicians; this ability was only evidenced in magicians with more than 5 years in the craft. However, unlike the rest of participants, experienced magicians had difficulty in correctly pinpointing the location of the coin in one of the real transfers presented. We hypothesise that this might be due to the inherent ambiguity of this transfer, in which, contrary to the other real transfer performed, no clear perceptive clue is given in reference to the location of the coin. We suggest that extensive time practicing magic might have primed experienced magicians to anticipate foul play when observing ambiguous movements, even when the actions observed are genuine.