Magic Isn't Magic: It's Psychology
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- Опубликовано: 25 ноя 2020
- Thanks to Blinkist for sponsoring this episode. The first 100 people to go to blinkist.com/scishowPsych are going to get unlimited access for 1 week to try it out. You’ll also get 25% off if you want the full membership.
Magicians have a handy ace up their sleeve: Your brain, and they're not the only ones who know how to use it.
Hosted by: Hank Green
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2:10 well damn I thought I was special for picking the second card... Turns out I'm just left handed
I'm right-handed and would've picked the 2nd card too. But apparently I also make decisions in different ways than most people. I go for the first open stall. :P
I wouldve taken the second card with the right hand because it doesnt matter
I suppose whenever the Magic School Bus gets lost, you could say it's experiencing... *misdirection.*
CARLOS!
Oh, Carlos! 🤣
I learned of the restroom bias a few years ago and started checking the first stall deliberately.
It's so weird because many many years ago they said most people pick the ones on the edges because they wanted less people next to them. Then came the middle bias. I wonder if it changes up based on these studies 😂
I use either the first or last stall. Nowadays they have closed all the middle stalls to create 'physical distance' so we don't even get to choose !!!
I remember a psychology professor showing us the basketball video when I was in college. =/ I saw the gorilla on the first round and the professor didn't believe me and actually yelled at me for lying until I yelled back, "I'm ADHD!" He went reaaaaallly quiet after that and was super nice for the rest of the semester and often asked me for my thoughts on things.
"I'm ADHD!" that is the funniest damn thing and a very legitimate explanation for many things. Thank you so much for this comment.
Us neurodivergent people may miss things neurotypical people tend to notice, but we also notice a lot of things they miss.
@@ragnkja That's why you guys are a resource, even if the school system hardly aknowledges that.
I'm mildly Aspergic and I agree. Although I didn't see the gorilla the first time around I remember feeling a cognitive uneasiness while I was counting the passes, when the ape appeared. I did see the issues in several other similar videos designed to test the same thing.
I'm really sorry that any teacher, especially a psychology professor, would treat you or any student that way. Diverse perspectives can enhance lives and learning.
"Science is magic to those who don't know science." ~PB and now that we know (some of) the science, we know (some) magic.
As a magician myself, You guys are right on the dot. Amazing !
🙏
It's frightening that politicians, corporations, psychologists and illusionists now team up to fool entire populations. I am lucky that I am aware of and not quite as prone to many of the cognitive tricks as an average person. That's not to say I'm immune but I do see through a lot of the deceit. It's depressing to see how 80% to 90% of people get thoroughly manipulated into making bad political and economic decisions.
@@andymanaus1077 Ok, I know I will regret this, but exactly why and how do you think psychologists in general are trying to fool the public?
@@jeffreym68 Thanks for the question. If you have an open mind, I don't know why you would regret inviting a frank discussion.
Psychologists are employed by political parties, corporations, advertising agencies, even video game companies. Their jobs are to manipulate public sentiment and attitudes, entice customers to buy more of their companies' products, or persuade gamers to buy their games and keep those gamers playing their companies' games for as long as possible. They employ psychological techniques to achieve this.
For example, video game companies make no secret of the fact that they employ psychologists. They freely admit that their job is to make the games as addictive as possible.
I hope you noticed that I did not say that *all* psychologists are trying to fool people. So *in general* psychologists who practice psychology are not trying to fool people. It is those psychologists who act on behalf of political parties, companies and the like who are.
I hope that clarifies what I was saying.
@@andymanaus1077 I appreciate the clarification. My hesitation stemmed from the fact that you did not make the same caveat in your original post that you did in your reply. That is, you may not have specifically used the phrase "ALL psychologists," but by not saying "SOME psychologists," readers are likely left with the impression that you believe the former, rather than the latter.
In general, I'm happy to have frank discussions with open-minded folks. When it looks like a comment is insulting an entire profession with which I'm familiar, I have to wonder if that's the type of person with whom I'll be interacting, and, if not, if I want to invest my time in that way.
For the record, I also have issues with people who apply research in a way that benefits corporations' bottom lines rather than people's well-being. Have a good one.
I've even done a test like the gorilla woman test where I was TOLD there would be a distraction and still missed it because I was focussing on the task of counting! Psychology is magic. ✨
Alternative title: Psychology is Magic✨
That is so good...so good...I say the same thing about math!
No, psychology is psychology, and math is just math. Humans are this desperate to name something hard to understand Magic? Jesus
Alternative alternative title: Choose the Cleaner Bathroom Stall!!
@@semaj_5022 🙈
awww
I really need "I can't imagine missing the gorilla woman" on a t-shirt. With a gorilla on it of course.
That's no way to speak of your ex! :-)
While I get the middle bias in most cases, for a bathroom, I would much rather be on an end, preferably on a wall. Who wants to be surrounded by people when they're going to the bathroom?
Factor there could be the end is usually a handicap stall or change table stall so people may avoid it.
Tight there with you on that one. i've always gone to the furthest stall / urinal.
Nah I would rather be the middle than the first one next to the sinks. I don’t want to know there are people just right beside me hearing me pee while they are washing their hand or whatever. Granted they probably can hear me anyways but if the handicap stall is the last one I pick the one next to that.
Ever since I learned that the first stall is the least used and the cleanest, that’s the one I choose...unless the toilet isn’t flushed or there’s no TP.
@@tammymccaslin4787
The first stall tends to not be picked because we assume that it is the easiest choice, and therefore the most common. Paradoxically, everyone thinking this leads to the first stall becoming the least used.
Or as Terry Pratchett would call it: Headology.
Douglas Adams had the Somebody Else’s Problem Field (SEP). It was a cloak that worked on the idea that people don’t see things that aren’t our problem. Was hoping you’d bring that one up 😩
I'd always thought the SEP field was more that they don't care about it when it's not their problem, rather than they don't see it? I'm often wrong though, lol
Well, the example used was to hide an entire spacecraft 😜, so I’d have to think that would mean they don’t see it. I’d have to reread it to be sure.
@@BeerElf66 You a correct in that the SEP field was a generator which could run "for a hundred years on a single AA battery" and it simply magnified the natural tendency of people not to notice things they didn't want to deal with. Adams explained by way of background that a scientific team had bet their lives during a drunken party, that they could make a mountain invisible. As the deadline loomed and realising they had failed, they resorted to demolishing it instead, in a night recognised universally as the hardest night's work ever performed. Their deceit was discovered and the scientists were executed. Instead, said Adams, they could have just painted the mountain pink and erected a simple SEP field and no one would have noticed it was there.
Misdirection: 2020's motto.
Hank is very upset about the dirty bathroom stall issue and honestly I feel his pain
How is Hank Green Everywhere on the internet? How much work does this man do! (I'm not complaining though. Gotta love me some Hank.)
Whats your history with watching Hank. It's odd for you to be a person who would watch scishow type videos and not know already that Hank has several scishow channels
It's what you're paying attention to. I didn't even see him in this video.
@@CaslavNorisavljevic Yeah I know Hank hosts tens of channels. But it never ceases to amaze me, the amount of work that this man must do to be this productive.
2:54 Handicap stalls are always the first or last, never in the center. Plus no one wants to pick the first stall because everyone will see you though the crack as they walk by.
Power Move: go to the washroom in the first stall
I dunno what this says about me, but when I participated in that experiment, I definitely noticed the gorilla person.
I tend to pay attention to my surroundings, to the detriment of what I'm trying to do.
I wouldn't be surprised if men do worse on this exercise than women. Male brains tend to have more focused attention whereas female brains tend to be able to deal with multiple tasks at once with less attention to each. Both styles of focusing have advantages and disadvantages.
If you always notice everything in your surroundings to the detriment of what you're trying you do, then you may have ADHD (or ADD, which is the unofficial name for a type of ADHD without the physical hyperactivity and impulsiveness).
I have ADD and I discovered it pretty late (when I was 17). Knowing it can really help you to understand yourself, so I would advice you to look into it if you haven't done so already. Your brain may work differently from most people, and if you try to do things in a normal way then you may end up having a hard time.
What you're saying is just one symptom of ADHD, so I may be completely wrong, but it is a strong indicator so it wouldn't hurt to see if more things apply to you :)
Well, since half the people miss the gorilla, that means half the people see it. The people that see it are not in a super-minority; it only means they were more aware in that moment.
Psychologists studying magicians to learn about psychology.
Interviewer: "Do you have any experience in the field of psychology?"
Interviewee: "I am a professional magician."
Interviewer: "You're hired."
Ray Hyman, psychologist and magician, used his skills to debunk fake psychics. He wanted to teach everyday folks not to fall for scams. We could use a lot more of that in society today.
You should watch Albert Goshman.
By the end of his salt shaker act you’ll award him a posthumous PhD
I always suspected that Hogwarts wasn't a school for wizards - it was a mental institution.
OR a MentalIST Institution!
that changes everything
It is a dark story of an abused child who lost his parents as a baby, was emotionally abused by his uncle and aunt, then was sent to a mental institution. There, to cope with the reality, he dreams up a fantastic world of magic where he is the protagonist hero who saves the world.
A popular Hungarian stage magician, Rodolfo would always tell his audience "Watch my hands closely for I am cheating!"
So everyone was watching real hard, yet no one would ever catch him in his tricks. He was a true legend.
Sales is psychology and salesmanship affects every aspect of our lives.
Yes! I completely agree! 🧠
Brings to mind a couple questions that trip up many people. (They have to be asked quickly. ) #1-How many of each animal did Moses have on the ark ? #2-If a plane crashes on the US/ Canadian border, in which country should the survivors be buried?
For the record, all my life I've preferred the bathroom stall closest to the back wall because to me it feels the most "private" and "secluded" for lack of a better term.
Same!
Great stuff! Thanks for sharing!
I imagine I would make life tougher for the magician since I wouldn't be attempting to choose my card "randomly" to begin with. I'd always take my favorite card of the options presented, which is a completely predetermined preference fully independent of the magician and what they're doing.
I took a critical thinking course a while back and they showed a similar video but instead of a gorilla, it was a moon walking bear. The video was used for a PSA for motorist to watch out for bicyclists. All of us missed the moon walking bear btw lol
How about adding a small number in brackets whenever the respective reference is mentioned. It's hard to tell apart the references in the description just from the links
oh that would actually be awesome!
So, am I the only one who, when using a public restroom that has more than one open stall, walks the length of the room to check on which one looks the cleanest before committing?
Nope. I check 'em all and if all equally clean, I pick the one nearest the entrance (Mythbusters found it was used the least on average.) If they're all dirty I hold it until I find another restroom.
Did you guys already put that on a T-Shirt?
I dig it. I already put these bits of knowledge on post-its on my home office wall.
Queen of hearts I always choose. I always take most left too.
I also usually choose the most left, but my preference is for the ace of hearts.
Yesterday i was told santa wasn’t real😢, now I’m being told magic isn’t real either?😭😭
Only the real magic isn't real, the not real magic is real
Sorry to disappoint but neither are the yetis, unicorns, mermaids, fairies or any of the gods. And there is no gold at the end of the rainbow.
Gregor Meijer: well said.
@@sogerc1 Unicorns and mermaids are real, they're just better identified by the names rhinos, and manatees.
Wait till we tell you about God.
Aww... there's a Harry Potter quote I find comforting: "Of course it's all in your head Harry, but why on Earth should that mean it isn't real?"
By that logic, love, hope, joy and happiness are real. The important things are real. Don't worry, hun 😘❤
1:45 I used that to great effect in Settlers of Catan.
How so?
@@Nanook128 When someone is about to draw a card from you, you reshuffle your less important resources to where they will likely draw from.
@@frostsmoke I'm not familiar with the phrase draw from you. Are you talking about stealing with the robber?
@@Nanook128 Yes, exactly that.
@@frostsmoke I see. That's an interesting strategy.
As a psychology lover, I wasn't sure if I should be offended or not 🤔🧠
This wasn't in our contract you broke the magician's code .
3:04 With Hank's accent, "clincher" sounds like "clencher", just after talking about toilet paper and "stools" ("stalls"). I thought 'great pun', then realised that he wasn't punning. Muricans!
I’m in cyber security. The scammers also use human psychology all the time. They are very powerful tactics. Pick pockets also use misdirection so be careful of that too.
I already knew that it was a right hand/left hand thing.
01:50 holy freaking weirdness :D i chose 3rd card :D but how :D
Me too, and immediately after picking it I predicted that Hank would say that the two middle cards were most commonly picked.
I like even numbers, so I usually go for the second or fourth card. I am a magician's worst nightmare. Lol
This isn't just done with physical presentations, people use words in the same way. People like Jim Jones, Harry Truman, my dentist and Jerry Seinfeld. Each has a different goal and each has a different motive but words are tools of misdirection.
When I design multiple choice tests, which I do in fact do on a semi-regular basis, I always make sure that there are exactly the same number of A, B, C, and D correct answers -- or as close as I can get if the number won't divide evenly by four.
In a bathroom I always choose an end stall because - if I haven't seen an action movie lately - I want to be as far away from people as possible - and if I have seen an action movie lately - I want the closest stall to the exit so I can sneak out when the protagonists fight in the bathroom
Dang it Hank! now everyone will know the left most stall is the best, and then it won’t be any more.
24,247 people know. 7.3 billion people don't know. In other words, currently 0.000328% of people know because of this video. You're safe to continue using the left-most stall.
(You can apply the same calculation to non-comorbidity Convid-19 cases for a startling revelation.)
@@andymanaus1077 I was very excited for your comment, because i love statistics. But then you made the Covid claim. Which yes, if you compare death rates to world population, the death rate seems insanely small. But that’s not how statistics work. We have to compare deaths to positive cases. Also, I’m not scared of dying from Covid, I’m scared of the long term complications of getting this respiratory/blood vessel attacking illness.
@@mooselove LOL
Wait, test designers CHOOSE where to place the correct answer in multiple choice tests? I would have thought to avoid any kind of bias that they would randomize the positions!
the one thing i question though, since the video says its not a 100% chance. what happens IF the person picks the unintended card
A good magician will have a backup trick/method for incase that happens and will misdirect you smoothly enough that you won’t realise that’s not what was supposed to happen in the first place
it is interesting how some people see the gorrilla
but if u watched the new version (the one with the red curtain)
then 3 things actually happen
1. gorrilla
2. the curtains change colours
3. 1 person just steps out of the stage area
Suggestion: The psychology of fandom. Why do humans become so obsessed with other humans they've never personally met?
I grew up during Beatlemania. Though I was practically a toddler when the Beatles made it big, I did become a fan. Still am a huge Beatles fan.
Fandom goes in so many directions, from music, to art, to sports, to even politics. Are we humans wired to become enamored of certain things we admire from afar?
i always choose the end stall, but thats because they are often what I call 'softly disabled' toilets, they have a few bars to help me out in a lot of places in the UK, without people judging me for going in the separated out disabled loo cus I look too young and only have one obvious aid on my wrist which can still be missed when wearing a coat or something.
washroom stall doesn't apply to me. i always choose the stall on either end because I dont want to be close to other people when i am doing business. if the stalls arent available the i would choose one that is furthest from other people.
Ironic the sponsors have the free trial that you can cancel anytime which makes money because most people forget to cancel the free trial and get charged...
I wouldn't have chose the third card, in part because the middle cards seem too obvious. But knowing this, someone could put the card they want picked on one of the ends. But knowing that... (and this becomes "I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me").
Hank is just everywhere
Shhhhhh! You're mucking it all up
For those who are curious: I tried Blinkist but I didn't like it that much. I feel like 15 minutes is just too short to summarize entire books.
That was my first thought when it started popping up in sponsors, it seems reductive. CGP Grey will often do 20 min videos about a topic on a book and not even get halfway
'It's brilliant if you want to "name drop" books in conversations to elevate your intellectual status. Whenever someone asks if you read that book you can always say "I'm familiar with it".' - The Great Pretender
What about strippers you understand why women go into stripping yet don't understand why guys send 🐓 pics.
I chose the 1st card because I was drawn to the left cards (I am mostly ambidextrous) and decided against the 2nd card because I knew it was more likely to be commonly picked
Me: he's gonna pick the third card.
* pick said card *
Me: :0
Alternative title: Magic is science and an art
Can someone make a playlist of all the scishow videos about "luckily, if know about x you are less likely to fall for x" because I'm trying to know about all of them, but I keep forgetting.
I always choose the bathroom stall the furthest away from the entrance cuz I assume it's the least used
I picked the third card but for a different reason. I always lean on anything realted to three, because it's my favorite number.
He mentioned @Bright Side
What was that about the new bathroom stall at the end?
I picked the third card as well lol.
if only more people could know this!
That's why I hate 'magic'! I always go to end end stall in public restrooms. I am left handed writing, but right handed using a calculator. I don't watch ads, I buy what I need, not what is on sale, etc. But I was raised by a lawyer, later a psychotherapist!
Magic is definitely psychology. Our computers have the same characteristics of the Magic Mirror. You can use both devices to see any that you desire.
About the examples given in the video. I've always have picked the opposite, perhaps because I'm a lefty?
Hank !!
When a card magician asks me to pick a card, I always say stop as soon as he starts to shuffle, resulting in the first, second or third card being selected. Every time, the cards get "accidentally" drops or fumbled. On one occasion, a magician gave each person a close to winning poker hand from a stacked deck. I played to lose and asked for three cards even though I held a pair of aces and a pair of kings, which resulted in his deck being messed up for the remaining players as well. Poor guy didn't know what to do. Yes, I know I'm evil.
Did anyone NOT notice the gorilla at the end of the video in the Blinkist ad?
After talking about toilet
"the clencher"
Teehee
I wonder if anyone noticed the gorilla at about 4:25
i was expecting this to be about like witchcraft magic and am only mildly disappointed bc this was really cool too!
Am left handed and i did choose the 3rd 🤣
This video doesn't have caption? Did something break? :(
Dayum, 98%, that's scary
But I like magic. I don’t want to know how they do it.
@MichaelKingsfordGray true, everybody knows cats can only type in Mexican
@MichaelKingsfordGray ?
I hate to say it, but you've fallen neatly into the same traps you described here. There are two areas where SciShow Psych falls down in covering a lot of phenomena. First, like other science shows, it tends to conflate neuroscience and psychology. Second, it emphasizes individual psychology over social aspects of many of the phenomena it covers. This is particularly evident in this presentation about prestidigitation -- if you know where to look.
Conflating what we know about neuroscience with psychology is very easy to do. Many of the psychological phenomena we observe are clearly built upon the neurological base of the brain and how it works. But the structure of the brain and functions of neurons aren't solely responsible for how people think, what they perceive, or how they interact as individuals. It's not entirely proper to completely separate them, but neither is it proper to treat neurological structure and function as psychological function: there are critical differences.
Likewise, it's a bad idea to credit to individual psychology -- or even social psychology -- what sociology explains as well or better. This episode talked a lot about how magicians use psychology to fool people, but it didn't touch the most important aspect of why magicians fool us so easily: the social aspect. Put simply, our mutually constructed social reality includes two essential elements. The first is that we know that magicians aren't really using supernatural means to fool our perceptions, but we also understand that it's OK because the social circumstances mean it's OK to be fooled. The second element is that being fooled in these circumstances is OK because we're left with a sense of awe and wonder -- we're amazed, and we came to a magic show to be amazed. This isn't about psychology or neurology: it's a social phenomenon, in which we tacitly agree that the magician will perform things we know are meant to fool us, but we ignore that knowledge because we want to be entertained -- in exchange for which, we give the magician money and prestige.
This same kind of social dynamic works to deadlier purposes in warfare. Whether it be camouflage, tactical deception, or military deception, the purpose is the same: to mislead or distract an adversary and protect friendly forces until it's too late for the adversary to avoid an attack. It depends partly on neurological structure and function: if you make it hard for "the bad guys" to tell your forces from the environment they're moving through, it's a lot easier to sell them the open display you make of other forces. It's partly psychology, too: many of the biases described play in here. But it's largely social in nature. Understanding what the adversary is prepared to believe makes it possible to make much more convincing displays that are harder to ignore.
I learned about camouflage, concealment and deception during my 20 years as a US Air Force Disaster Preparedness Technician. I didn't understand social construction at the time, but I intuitively understood that it worked because of something like social construction. When I learned about social construction in the process of taking a PhD in sociology, I finally had a term for what I'd recognized 20 years earlier. So don't ignore sociology in explaining many of the phenomena you cover: the social forces are often far stronger with them than you realize.
So many things we know about that can be used to unconsciously influence people. So many things still not taught to most people in school...
When he said politicians use misdirection all the time..he might as well have added Corporations.
Except for one pair of prestidigitators: Penn and Teller. Penn Gillette tells you everything he's doing and still successfully misdirects.
Yes, but if everyone starts avoiding the middle stalls because they're the dirtiest, then the end stalls that everyone now goes to will become the dirtiest. :/
I think it's already a cyclical thing. Before the middle bias, there was an old study that said the edges were the most used because people wanted to not have so many people next to them.
@@Cypresssina
If there are more than five stalls, I typically pick the second or second-to-last stall, in an attempt to steer clear of both middle bias and extreme bias. It’s probably a “not liking extremes” bias on my own part, however.
@@ragnkja Lol. I like it!
Well, as world renowned magician Teller so famously said:
" "
And I think that says it all, really.
What, you don't always choose the handicap stall?
“Pick a number from One To Four”
... I didn’t hear “3” in that sentence so, 3
Why should I use the toilet in the middle? I don't want a toilet buddy on both sides
If you ask a magician how they did a trick, i bet most of the time they could truthfully say "I did it when you weren't looking".
Did anyone notice the gorilla holding the text for the sponsor at the end?
I chose the third card. I am biased.
I’d choose the 4th card, only because I’d be suspicious of my first choice (2nd card) and would want to choose the card furthest from them. Turns out, I’m the 2%. 🤷🏻
For the 4-card problem, it was only 60% of the time that people picked the 3rd card. So you'd be in the other 40%.
I'd be curious about the percentages about the other cards individually though.
anyone else use the last available stall because they are afraid of someone pushing on the stall door looking for the next available toilet?
It's just semantics. To any magician, fictional or real, magic in it's core is just science - knowledge and practice, that is usually above typical observers understanding or perception.
Commenting for the youtube algorithm XD
I mean. Hey. I know. But ssh, don't tell them!
Actually, Magic Is not only psychology, but technology and knowledge as well. Same with superstitions most of the time
Damn clarkeTech
Plz add english subtitle for non english speakers
Crazy stunts for politicians as misdirection. Guess which politician's a master at that.
There is a difference between slight of hand and mind manipulations or “lesser magic”. Lesser magic is manipulation of realities brought forth by suggestions and intrusive things. The study of some of this is Psychology. Psych only taps the surface of what is actually happening and the implications of the situation. It fails to truly understand the reasons and instead tries to explain situations with generic answers.
You look left and they fall right
Into the Kansas City Shuffle
Just knowing that there is a con, doesn't mean you've found it.
Except when it's really magic! Right? Hank please back me up here! Yeah? No? Sigh... It may be okay to be smart, but it's not easy! PEACE
But wait, I thought science isnt magic, Exurb1a said that technology isn’t wizzard jizzz
Lol, its a reference to exurb1a’s video “ 10,000 more years of the scientific method” go watch it. Its a lit song