[HN Gopher] Sleight-of-hand magic trick only fools monkeys with ... ___________________________________________________________________ Sleight-of-hand magic trick only fools monkeys with opposable thumbs Author : supermatou Score : 159 points Date : 2023-06-03 08:50 UTC (14 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.cam.ac.uk) (TXT) w3m dump (www.cam.ac.uk) | lisper wrote: | Serious amateur magician here (magician member of the Magic | Castle). Note that the trick done for the monkeys is not done the | way that a real magician would do the trick to fool a human. The | French Drop actually can have surprisingly deep subtleties. To | fool a human, you would hold the coin between your thumb and | forefinger so that there is a visible gap between the bottom of | the coin and the palm of the hand holding it into which it will | be dropped. Then the hand that grabs the coin is moved into place | in a smooth continuous motion, covering this gap very briefly, | during which time the coin is dropped. The key is that the gap is | visible during most of this motion, after which the grasping hand | pauses briefly before closing the thumb and forefingers to | "grasp" the (now missing) coin. The key to making it convincing | is that the trick actually happens _before_ the dramatic pause | before grasping the coin, but the pause focuses the spectator 's | attention on the fact that during the pause the gap is visible, | making it "impossible" for the coin to be dropped without being | seen. It's considered one of the most elementary of tricks, but | it's actually quite challenging to do properly. In the hands of a | skilled magician it can be very convincing even when you know how | it's done. | | Magic is an art with vastly more subtlety and attention to detail | than it generally appreciated by muggles. | [deleted] | dylan604 wrote: | so are you now going to lose your membership for giving away | the secret? ;-) | | on one of the nights out, there was a magician that would just | walk around the club to do a couple of tricks to groups just | hanging out as part of the entertainment. i think i must be the | perfect mark, since i'm convinced if i watch close enough i'll | prevent myself from getting fooled. which is precisely the | thing i'm guessing makes me the perfect mark! | empath75 wrote: | There's some core moves like the "French drop" and "double | lift" and "pass" that are well out of the bag right now, and | tons and tons of youtube videos on how to do them. | lisper wrote: | This is true, but one of the things I never appreciated | about magic before I started hanging out at the Castle and | learning from actual humans was how little the "moves" | actually matter. Magic is a performing art, and it's much | more about the details of the performance than the "moves". | I learned the "moves" as a kid, but I was a horrible | performer [1] until someone started drawing my attention to | all the other little details. It's the difference between | playing the notes and what someone like Yo Yo Ma does. | | [1] I'm actually still not all that great, but at least now | I know why! | schwartzworld wrote: | Additionally, well-performed basic slight of hand like this | is still magical even when you know how it's done. | lisper wrote: | > i'm convinced if i watch close enough i'll prevent myself | from getting fooled | | Yep, we magicians love people like you. :-) | gretch wrote: | One time I actually did watch close enough and saw | something I wasn't supposed to see - the magician somehow | flicked a card flat into his inside front jacket pocket. | | Even after I saw it I couldn't believe my eyes. Like, how | could you flick it like that with such high precision. | schwartzworld wrote: | I do a great french drop. I don't know much other magic, but I | can really vanish a quarter or other similarly sized object. My | kids love it, so I still practice a fair amount. | | The drop itself is a very unnatural way to transfer a coin from | one hand to the other, so the first step for me to doing it | well was to practice actually transferring the coin without the | vanish. | | Something about this process really blew my mind and changed | the way I thought about learning new skills. It's a lot of work | and effort to make something look casual and easy like that, | and until you get to that level of comfort, it's honestly not | even worth showing anybody. | thunderbong wrote: | That was wonderfully explained! Do you know of any video which | shows this in a close up? | CSSer wrote: | https://youtube.com/watch?v=EZ0C2wh5IyE | cmdialog wrote: | A lisper and a CSSer workting together towards a common | goal. I love to see it | lisper wrote: | That's a great video, but note that it demonstrates a | slightly different technique than the one I described. | Still a very good video, and also a good illustration of | the range of subtlety in even a very simple trick. | mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: | Muggle here. Ever incorporated Lisp into one of your magic | tricks(pick a parenthesis...)? | lisper wrote: | No, but it's an interesting idea. There are magicians who | specialize in mathematical magic. Arthur Benjamin is the best | known: | | https://www.ted.com/talks/arthur_benjamin_a_performance_of_m. | .. | mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: | I just realised, you're Ron Garret, I had no idea! | | In that case, if we extend the definition of magic to | include the SICP definition, I would say your work at JPL | counts :D | 6510 wrote: | The one I do with dogs, cats and babies is much less | sophisticated but works well. The left hand with the food is | flat and open you pretend to pick it up with the tips of your | fingers and move towards the spectator. Simply close the left | hand and turn it over. | no_wizard wrote: | I have to say I love a good magic show. Like illusionists stuff | is so cool to me even though I realize I'm just getting played | the fool. | | Card tricks in particular I love. I could watch someone do card | tricks all day. | | Does anyone know a good way to dabble in learning card tricks? | I'd love to try and hone the skill myself | dhosek wrote: | Kind of reminds me of a video I saw on Twitter of someone doing a | super-simple shell game trick with a mountain lion and the lion's | favorite toy. Frankly, I expected the lion to react to the | missing toy by biting the human's face off. | karmakaze wrote: | > "There is increasing evidence that the same parts of the | nervous system used when we perform an action are also activated | when we watch that action performed by others," | | Certainly there has to be a 'theory of operation' in the viewers | mind for the trick to work. One way is by having first-hand | familiarity with the mechanics. I'd be curious if the trick would | work on an animal very familiar with human mechanics but no | thumbs, say a smart breed of dog. | kmoser wrote: | When I watch people perform intricate physical movements (e.g. | dance, gymnastics, yoga) I can actually feel in my "mind's eye" | what it would be like to be in their place, including the | sensations of movement and pressure against whatever they are | making contact with. So to me it's obvious that my nervous | system gets activated just by watching others, and I assumed | (probably wrongly) that most people have the same experience. | | I also thought this would be obvious to scientists since it's | well known that babies mimic adult facial expressions, and | therefore there must be some correlation to the parts of the | nervous system being activated in both individuals. | AlecSchueler wrote: | It's mirror neurons, as mentioned in the article. Well known | to the science community for decades now but still a lot of | research that needs to be done. | dhosek wrote: | There's a very simple trick where you have someone twist their | arms in such a way that there hands end up in the opposite | places than is typical. You then have the person with twisted | limbs move a finger that's pointed to but not touched. In most | cases, the subject moves the finger on the wrong hand. | MountainMan1312 wrote: | I could totally see a Siberian Husky arguing with you about it | yoyopa wrote: | [flagged] | coltonv wrote: | I bet you're fun at parties. | BasedAnon wrote: | but it was posted to youtube | fho wrote: | Completely anecdotal, but the best magic "show" I "attended" was | a close-up magician at a medieval fair. During his show the crowd | grew dramatically and inched closer and closer to his little | table. No fence no nothing, so in the end the closest guys | basically had their noses touching his coins and cards. | | He ended his show with a snarky "of course i am messing with you | ... these are magic coins, see? ... this one is this big from one | side and ..." [flips coin on the table, no toss, just a simple | half turn] "... and this big [larger] from the other". | | I don't have the faintest idea how he did any of his tricks. | People were watching him from inches away from every angle even | from behind. | | 10/10 would watch again. | air7 wrote: | The proper title for this article should be "sleight of hand | magic tricks involving opposable thumbs only fool monkeys with | opposable thumbs" | | This "Title Fluffing" trend is quite annoying | bloomingeek wrote: | Best HN subject title of the year? | expazl wrote: | I haven't read the study, but I think there is an extremely high | chance that this is showing confirmation bias. And i feel the | video they show supports this interpretation. I don't know | monkeys so didn't know which ones had opposable thumbs but felt | just from the hand movement that I understood when the researcher | intended the monkey to follow the moving hand and when the | researcher didn't, moving the hand more significantly when | wanting the money to focus on it, and damping the movement when | wanting it to focus on the still hand. | | If they didn't already do this, they should train some people to | perform the trick that doesn't know the difference between the | monkeys and don't know what the expected outcome is based on | their current hypothesis. | soxocx wrote: | > Illusion involving a hidden thumb confounds capuchin and | squirrel monkeys for the same reason as humans - it misdirects | the expected outcomes of actions they can carry out. | | To be fair. As a human I would state you expect it to be a trick | (a very easy one to spot in this case) and you can easily infer | that the coin just _drops_ into the hand it was to start with. It | does not feel that it has anything todo with what actions you can | carry out. The coin is either grabbed by the non-coin hand or | not, it depends on the magician, right? | amelius wrote: | Really after seeing the trick I could only conclude the coin | could be in either hand. | mannykannot wrote: | True, but I don't think we can conclude that opposable thumbs | correlate with a reduced capacity for deductive logic. | soxocx wrote: | That is what I am talking about. It could be either in the | initial coin hand, because the performer just let it drop, | or the performer could take it. There is no way of knowing. | You have to guess based on the situation, and the thumb | part feels like a stretch. | | It feels like more an intuition based thing that might | relate to some level of intelligence which might correlate | to having thumbs for certain mammals? | mannykannot wrote: | As a human, I would expect a trick given the article's title, | or maybe in a context where it seems some sort of test or | demonstration is being given, but then, I have seen these sort | of things before. | | The trick works on humans, even when they know they are | watching someone performing an illusion, if the performer can | distract their attention at the right moment. | eightnoneone wrote: | As a monkey, I want treats. | rrobukef wrote: | Now I'm curious if you can teach either sleight-of-hand trick to | the monkeys. | rvba wrote: | This video is of incredibly poor quality? It's hard to understand | what the magician is doing, also it is quite clear that the coin | is in his left hand (right side of the screen). | | Was the trick also done so poorly when used on monkeys too? | JusticeJuice wrote: | Interesting research. | | > The research suggest that sharing a biomechanical ability may | be necessary for accurately anticipating the movements of those | same limbs in other individuals. | | I wonder if it's really about _sharing_ a biomechanical ability, | or just being _familiar_ with a bicomechanical ability. They 're | familiar with how their oposable-thumbed hands work, and then can | relate to how human hands work. | | But, if a non-oposable monkey was raised alongside another | species that did have opposable thumbs, would they be familar | enough with how opposable thumbs can operate - and therefore get | fooled. | __MatrixMan__ wrote: | I'm reminded of the radio lab episode about the color blue which | suggests that ancient cultures without the ability to make blue | dye don't perceive that color (at the very least, they didn't | have a word for it). | | Manipulation and perception appear to be quite linked. | Tumblewood wrote: | that's more about categorization than perception - some | cultures don't have a word just for blue, but they still very | much perceive it. it's just lumped into the same category as | green ("grue"). | szundi wrote: | This research is really just done with only 3 species and jumped | to conclusions at once? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-06-03 23:00 UTC)