Magic trick reveals gaze direction and attention are not always linked

When magicians trick people using sleight of hand, you'd think it was all about misdirecting where the audience - specifically their eyes - are looking, hence the aphorism: "the hand is quicker than the eye."

But now psychologists in Durham and Dundee have shown that it's not so much where the audience's gaze is directed that is important, but rather where they are focusing their attention. That's right, the two things are not necessarily the same.

Most of the time we pay attention to where we're looking, but we don't have to. For example, we can, if we want, stare straight ahead while focusing our attention to the side.

Gustav Kuhn and colleagues played university students a clip of a short magic trick in which the magician appears to make a cigarette and lighter disappear. The cigarette "disappears" when the magician drops it into his lap while directing the audience's attention to his other hand.

Surprisingly, recordings of the students' eye movements showed that whether or not they spotted the cigarette drop (and hence realised how the trick was done) had nothing to do with their eye position at the moment of the drop. Blinks or eye movements during the drop were also irrelevant.

By contrast, the students' eye position after the cigarette drop was associated with whether they saw it. Specifically, those students who, after the drop, moved their eyes more quickly to the (now empty) cigarette hand, were more likely to report having seen the cigarette fall.

The likely explanation is that those students who, post drop, made the faster glance to the cigarette hand had already shifted their attentional spotlight (but not yet their eyes) to the cigarette, in time to see it drop. This would be consistent with previous research showing that our eye movements to a given location are preceded by an attentional shift to that same spot. This means that for the trick to work, the magician needs to misdirect the audience's covert attentional spotlight, not necessarily their overt eye position.

There's a final complication. Several of the students who spotted the dropped cigarette actually moved their eyes to the magician's face before his cigarette hand. They still glanced, post drop, to the cigarette hand faster than the students who didn't see the drop, but they looked at the face first. However, this is still consistent with our explanation. It merely suggests, in line with previous research, that the attentional spotlight can be two or more locations ahead of where the eyes have yet to move.

Link to magic trick.
Link to earlier related Digest item.
_________________________________

Kuhn, G., Tatler, B., Findlay, J., Cole, G. (2008). Misdirection in magic: Implications for the relationship between eye gaze and attention. Visual Cognition, 16(2), 391-405. DOI: 10.1080/13506280701479750

You have read this article Cognition / Magic / Perception with the title . You can bookmark this page URL https://psychiatryfun.blogspot.com/2008/04/magic-trick-reveals-gaze-direction-and.html. Thanks!

Lads' mags and feelings of physical inadequacy - single men most at risk

We hear a lot about how the Western cultural ideal of an unrealistically skinny female figure can harm women's self-esteem and leave them feeling dissatisfied with their bodies. Now David Giles and Jessica Close have drawn attention to the fact that, with the media's increasing objectification of the male form, men too can be prone to feelings of physical inadequacy.

Specifically, Giles and Close have shown that greater exposure to lads' mags, like Zoo and FHM is associated with men wishing to be more muscular, and with their tending to accept cultural ideals regarding how the male body should be. These magazines tend to make fun of men who fall short of having a well-toned body and they place great emphasis on the importance of being successful with girls.

One hundred and sixty-one men (average age 22 years) answered questions about how often they read lads' magazines. They also completed a questionnaire about sociocultural attitudes towards appearance - for example, they rated their agreement with statements like "In our culture, someone with a well-built body has a better chance of obtaining success". Finally, they completed a questionnaire about their desire and attempts to be more muscular - for example, by rating their agreement with statements like "I think that my weight-training schedule interferes with other aspects of my life".

The researchers found that the degree to which lads' mag exposure was associated with men striving to be more muscular, depended largely on how much the men had come to accept and internalise cultural ideals regarding the male form. A further finding was that this association between the magazines and striving to be more muscular was stronger among single men than among men who were in a relationship.

A weakness of the study is its cross-sectional design: rather than the mags affecting the men, it's perfectly feasible that men who are more concerned with physical appearance tend to read lads' magazines more.
_________________________________

GILES, D., CLOSE, J. (2008). Exposure to lad magazines and drive for muscularity in dating and non-dating young men. Personality and Individual Differences, 44(7), 1610-1616. DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2008.01.023

You have read this article Health with the title . You can bookmark this page URL https://psychiatryfun.blogspot.com/2008/04/lads-mags-and-feelings-of-physical.html. Thanks!