How Magicians Trick Your Brain: The Philosophy of Magic

In this YouTube video, "How Magicians Trick Your Brain," it shows how not only how magicians know how to fool their audience, but how ones brain fools them as well in the process. I connected it to the topic we talked about in class the top down processing. Our brain is using top down processing because as the videos shows the coin trick, from prior knowledge and experience ones brain doesn't even realize the passing of the coin thats right in front of there eyes and actually believes it appeared in the magicians hand when really the magician passes the coin into the other hand. The brain uses the top down processing and believes magicians will actually pull the coin from behind ones ear or have it magically appear in their hand, so it doesn't acknowledge whats actually going on. It's perception is based off prior knowledge and experience using the top down processing and I found that that processing plays a big role in how magicians are successful to pull off their tricks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86kp10cboOQ

Comments

Negative Afterimage

Reber Shukri Professor Vaughn Negative afterimage is a stimulus which elicits a positive image. In order to experience this, one can look at a bright source of light and then look away to a dark area. The way negative afterimage works is when the eye's photo-receptors which are the rods and cones adapt to over stimulation and lose sensitivity. The photo-receptors which are constantly exposed to the same stimulus will fatigue their supply of photo pigment, resulting a decrease in signal to the brain. The way negative afterimage connects to perception is because of bottom up processing where the stimulus influences what we perceive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szy8iNCljlQ <Link to the video

The Rotating Mask Illusion- Schizophrenia

A schizophrenic process is more of a bottom up process than a top down which is what we do. We are unable to see a hollow face at first because we have never seen that before in our prior experience. This illusion occurs because the brain interprets information based on context and previous experience, or top down processing. In schizophrenic people there is a dysconnectivity between the parietal cortex, where top down occurs, and the lateral occipital cortex, where bottom up occurs, which is why they see the hollow face right away. In healthy people the connectivity in these areas are increased which is why they see a regular rotating face

Positivity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO1kgl0p-Hw&t=41s The video displays the power of the brain and the ways the brain can be tricked into doing things that would usually be out of someone's capabilities Two people were randomly chosen to shot free throws in basketball blind folded and then they took them of and shot them without. The first person missed all 10 blindfolded but was told that they were close or they went in when they didn't but when she took the blindfold off and shot them they were much closer and some actually went in, proving that the brain can be tricked by positivity. This relates to perception because if you tell yourself you can do something or someone is hyping you up into thinking you could do something you and your brain will preform better than with negative attitudes.

Philosophy of Perception

Search This Blog