Radoslaw Wincza and Gustav Kuhn published an article in the journal, Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, that challenges certain assumptions many magicians hold.
The article, “Challenging Magicians’ Intuitive Insights: The Role of Audience Participation in Experiencing a Magic Trick,” conducted an experiment involving different versions of Invisible Deck and a card transposition to see whether spectators were more impressed under certain conditions.
Here’s what the authors found, in their own words: “Data from our experimental studies did not support magicians’ assumptions about how magic is experienced. Magic that happened in the participant’s hand was not viewed as more impossible or engaging than when it happened elsewhere.”
The study went on to say: “Also, active participation did not increase enjoyment but increased confusion. Interestingly, contrary to magicians’ insights, we observed that participants felt that selecting a card was felt as being freer than naming a card.”
The first experiment had a member of a small group of spectators either physically select a card from the deck or simply name a card of their choosing. After the chosen audience member made their selection, the magician performed an Invisible Deck routine. The second experiment involved the card transposition, with one version having the card change in the spectator’s hand and the other having the card change after it was placed under a card box. One version of each of these tricks was performed for 134 people in groups ranging from two to five participants.
After the performance, the participants were asked a series of questions about how they felt about the magic, which led to the results summarized above.