Magic? It really is a case of blink and you’ll miss it

THE key to being a successful magician could be as simple as getting members of the audience to relax until they blink, a study has revealed.

Professor Richard Wiseman, a professional magician turned psychologist, conducted an experiment with a trick called Miser’s Dream, which is performed by Raymond Teller of the American duo Penn & Teller.

Widely regarded by fellow magicians as a brilliantly constructed illusion, it involves Teller inviting a member of the audience on to the stage before seemingly plucking large silver coins out of her hands, clothes, spectacles and even thin air. The coins are dropped into a goldfish bowl and, for the grand finale, appear to be transformed into fish.

Two magicians were asked to watch a video of the trick and identify the points at which Teller was making it work by, for instance, picking up the coins

‘That’s when they do secret things’

from a hidden stash. They identified seven such ‘secret actions’.

Twenty men and women were then filmed watching the video, with particular attention paid to the movement of their eyes. This showed that they often blinked at the same time – and many just as Teller was working his ‘magic’.

Previous research has shown that people blink more when relaxed and Professor Wiseman, of the University of Hertfordshire, said that magicians already used a variety of techniques to relax their audience and make them lower their guard.

They also perform key moves just as one trick is ending or when the audience is laughing or clapping and so not paying full attention.

Writing in the journal Peer J with Japanese colleague Tamami Nakano, he said: ‘Magicians know when audiences are allowing their attention to dip and that’s when they do secret things that are likely to go unnoticed.

‘What’s surprising, and what even magicians didn’t know, is that the majority of the audience are blinking at those precise moments.’