Note: Tomorrow is the last day for the DVD giveaway!
I can’t leave you for the weekend on that depressing note about the Republican debate! So instead I give you this: a video by my evil twin, Richard Wiseman, a psychologist, conjurer, and of course extremely handsome man.
Richard is a treasure trove of such things, so I strongly urge you to go to his website and play I strongly urge you to go to his website and play (link updated on the request of my friend Teek, to whom I have a hard time saying no). You’ll be glad you did, and you might learn a thing or two about how you perceive the world… and how you don’t.
Tip o’ the sorcerer’s cap to the very wonderful Linda Shallenberger.
May 4th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Oh dear, they warned me but I didn’t believe them, it has finally happened, I’M BLIND!
May 4th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Is that guy your brother?
May 4th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Great link BA!
For anyone interested in perception and how our mind plays tricks on us, I recommend reading “Stumbling on Happiness”, by Daniel Gilbert.
OEJ
May 4th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
I thought something was different about her shirt, but that’s about the extent of my observation. (Hey, I was concentrating on the cards, silly me.)
The scary thing is that my wife, without any prompting, noticed every single change the instant it happened. Of course, I suppose that if you notice the first change, you are far more likely to spot every other one simply because you are on the alert.
May 4th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Oh I get it; Sara joined Star Fleet before the end of the card trick. (Green is the Enterprise gardening staff.)
May 4th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
LOL
I can’t wait to show this video to mmy brothers xD
May 4th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
I was had, plain and simple. Could not “believe” how duped I was. Yes, I was concentrating on the cards, silly me. But, something was odd about Sarah’s shirt, and it had nothing to do with star fleet!
May 4th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
I totally missed all the color changes, but I did catch the guy in the gorilla costume. He looked just like the one in the video of the people tossing balls back and forth?
May 4th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
Yay! Inattentional blindness. Who would have thunk the BA would mix my other obsessions in his blog? For what it’s worth (spam spam), the Best Illusion of the Year contest takes place just one week from tomorrow (12 May) in Sarasota, Florida:
http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com/index.php
Those who are interested in “how we perceive the world, and how we don’t” may want to keep track.
May 4th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
I even said to myself, “this isn’t a very good video, the camera zooms in and out, allowing any number of changes to take place”, but I was still only thinking of the cards. To what I think is my credit, as soon as the video informed me that other changes had occured, I immediately remembered that the curtain had been a dark color in the beginning. I assumed that the other changes were in the clothes and tablecloth, but I have to admit that they had made no impression on me that I could call a memory.
Does this prove that husbands should be excused if we can’t remember every detail of our wives’s wardrobe and hair-styles?
I suspect that it does, but I am sure that we are not.
May 4th, 2007 at 8:59 pm
yy2bggggs, thanks for getting the Spam song stuck in my head! Spam, spam, spam, spam, lovely spam, wonderful spam, spam spam, spam…
May 5th, 2007 at 12:37 am
I noticed that the camera did not always give the “complete picture,” especially what Mr.Wiseman was doing with the cards when Sarah revealed the chosen card. But I did not notice the colour changes.
Great clip. Thanks for sharing it.
May 5th, 2007 at 3:54 am
If you like this, you’ll love this. My colleague and I are debating how much of this is staged, but the reactions of the people seem genuine…
May 5th, 2007 at 9:39 am
PK: Say,,, WHAT???
Remind me to always doubly check my wallet.
That was hilarious.
I’d love to see how he corrected that “Mistake”,,,
GAry 7
May 6th, 2007 at 2:48 am
I did notice all the changes, but the foreword for the video was a tip – i knew i gotta pay attention not only to the silly trick with cards…
May 6th, 2007 at 9:12 am
I only spotted two of the changes, although I did notice that the deck of cards had been out of shot for long enough to swap it for a different deck.
May 6th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
I noticed Sarah’s green shirt right away… a more subtle colour change might have duped me in that instance. And I figured all the zooming & panning was allowing for the cards to be switched, but I did indeed miss some of the other changes!
Fun!
May 6th, 2007 at 10:52 pm
[...] Tip: Phil Plait/Bad Astronomer for the cardtricks and Aryeh Harif/YouThinkLeft [...]