Impossible Movement Illusions

Past research has used the phi phenomenon to create the illusion of one object moving through another. This article presents three optical illusions that are conceptually similar, yet little known within academic psychology. Two of the illusions have been developed within the magic community and involve the performer appearing to make a finger jump from one hand to another and a cup penetrate through another cup. The article explores the factors underpinning these illusions and describes how these factors were used to enhance a similar illusion developed outside of magic (the penetration of one hand through another).Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

A New Version of the Beuchet Chair Illusion

Creative Commons CC-BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). Richard Wiseman, 'A new version of the Beuchet Chair Illusion', i-PERCEPTION, Vol 7(6): 1-6, December 2016, available online at doi: 10.1177/2041669516679168 © 2016 The Author. Published by SAGE.The Beuchet Chair is a powerful and highly popular optical illusion. The illusion involves two reasonably large pieces of apparatus: an oversized chair seat and four normal-sized chair legs. When properly arranged and viewed from a precise location, a person standing on the seat appears to be much smaller than they actually are. Although compelling, the illusion is relatively challenging and expensive to construct, requires a large amount of space to stage, and is not especially portable. Here, I outline a new version of the illusion that just involves a small piece of cardboard, a cloth, and a tripod. This new version costs almost nothing to create, is highly portable, and requires far less space than the original.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Acceptance Of The Nurse Practitioner Role By Consumers In A Rural Community

This nonexperimental descriptive study was designed to explore the question, what is the level of acceptance of the nurse practitioner role by the consumer in a rural community located in Northeast Mississippi

Seeing the impossible: the impact of watching magic on positive emotions, optimism, and wellbeing

© 2024 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Watching a magic trick is a unique experience in which seemingly impossible events appear possible but without any suspension of disbelief. Unfortunately, relatively little work has examined the psychological impact of this fascinating experience. In the current study, participants first completed a measure of the degree to which they disliked magic (Loathing of Legerdemain Scale: LOLS) and then watched a video that either contained a series of magic tricks (magic video) or carefully matched non-magic tricks (control video). Participants then rated the degree to which they experienced positive epistemic emotions (Epistemically Related Emotion Scale: ERES), their belief about impossible events being possible in the future (Modal Judgment Task: MJT), general optimism (State Optimism Measure: SOM) and subjective wellbeing (Satisfaction With Life Scale: SWLS). Compared to participants who watched the control video, those who saw the magic video reported more positive epistemic emotions on the ERES. There were no significant differences on the MJT, SOM and SWLS. Participants' LOLS scores were negatively correlated with the ERES, SOM and SWLS, suggesting that those who like magic are more likely to experience positive epistemic emotions, have higher levels of general optimism, and express greater satisfaction with their lives. These findings are discussed within the context of short-term and long-term exposure to magic, along with recommendations for future work.Peer reviewe

Turning the other lobe: : Directional biases in brain diagrams

© 2017 The Author(s). This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).Past research shows that in drawn or photographic portraits, people are significantly more likely to be posed facing to their right than their left. We examined whether the same type of bias exists among sagittal images of the human brain. An exhaustive search of Google images using the term 'brain sagittal view' yielded 425 images of a left or right facing brain. The direction of each image was coded and revealed that 80% of the brains were right-facing. This bias was present in images that did not contain any representation of a human head. It is argued that the effect might be aesthetic in nature, the result of the Western tradition of reading left to right or due to the facial factors that underlie the bias previously found in portraits.Peer reviewe

Conjuring up creativity:The effect of performing magic tricks on divergent thinking

© 2021 Wiseman et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, to view a copy of the license, see: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Research suggests that learning to perform magic tricks can promote both physical and psychological wellbeing. The current study extended this work by examining the impact of learning magic tricks on divergent thinking. A group of 10- to 11-year-old children completed Guilford’s Alternate Uses Test both before and after participating in either a magic-based, or art-based, activity. As predicted, compared to the art-based activity, the magic-based activity resulted in a significantly greater increase in both AUT Fluency and AUT Originality scores. Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale and Dweck’s Implicit Theories of Intelligence Scale for Children was also completed after each activity, and participants’ self-esteem scores were higher after the art-based activity than the magic-based activity. In an exploratory aspect of the study, the AUT was re-administered to both groups three weeks later, and yielded no significant differences. The practical and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed, along with recommendations for future research.Peer reviewe

Pedagogic prestidigitation: using magic tricks to enhance educational videos

Previous research suggests that magic tricks can be employed within an educational context to enhance attention, engagement, critical thinking and recall. This study builds on this work by examining the impact of incorporating magic tricks into an online educational video. Adult participants (N = 198) completed a need for cognition scale and then watched a video containing either several bespoke card tricks that had been specially devised to help tell the story of the Apollo Moon landings (Magic Video), or an almost identical video that did not contain any magic tricks (Control Video). All participants rated their levels of engagement, absorption and recall. Compared to the Control Video, the Magic Video was rated as significantly more interesting, informative and absorbing. There was no difference between the groups for recall. There was a positive correlation between participants’ need for cognition scores, and the degree to which they found the Magic Video interesting, and were willing to share it with others. The theoretical, methodological and practical implications of these results are discussed, along with recommendations for future work.Peer reviewe