To help pay for his undergraduate education, Elias Garcia-Pelegrin had an unusual summer job: cruise ship magician. “I was that guy who comes out at dinnertime and does random magic for you,” he says.

A step-by-step tutorial teaching eight visual and impressive magic tricks using everyday objects like cards, coins, pens, ...

University of Cambridge provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK. Magic tricks can teach us about how the brain works. Magic capitalises on very specific blind spots in people’s attention ...

Most magic tricks require a fairly sophisticated understanding of how humans perceive the world. To fall for a trick, people have to see things they perceive as important and ignore things that are ...

Psychologists have long studied how magic deceives us. Illusionists exploit shortcomings in our attention and perception to prevent us seeing what is in front of our eyes, and learning how their ...

A small experiment using sleights of hand and illusions offers insights into how birds and people perceive the world. By Veronique Greenwood The coin is in the illusionist’s left hand, now it’s in the ...