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The Role of Sensation and Perception Theories in the Mystery Art of Mentalism

Alexander Frieson-Chan

University of Victoria

Sensation and Perception, PSYC 317

For Dr. Adam Krawitz

April 11, 2020

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Introduction

I have been performing the mystery arts for eight years, and that passion has led me to

study psychology. This paper will seek to highlight the parallels between my passion that is the

mystery art of mentalism and the cognitive neuropsychological study of perception and

sensation. It will explore and expose a mentalism effect and discuss why it was deceptive. It will

use themes covered in the course to find those direct connections. The unit from the course that

will be used as the basis of comparison will be visual attention. Within the aforementioned unit

the specific principles and theories that will be examined are inattentional blindness and change

blindness. These two theories were at play simultaneously, so they both effectively hid the

secret to the method.

A legend in mentalism, Bob Cassidy explains that the performance art of mentalism

entails the performer demonstrating psychic abilities for the sake of entertainment (2013). There

exists a compendium of abilities and performance plots that mentalists appear to have—such

abilities include reading minds, predicting future events, hypnosis and even telekinesis. An

important semantic distinction to make is that mentalists are not psychics nor are psychics

mentalists. The difference is the inherent nature of mentalism is entertainment and performance

based whereas psychics offer life guidance, and give advice akin to a life-coach. Obviously,

mentalists do not possess actual powers. Using a mixture of sleight of hand, inattentional and

change blindness, suggestion, psychological subtleties, and reading social cues, mentalists can

give the appearance of reading minds. These methods are similar to the methods a magician

would use but there is another distinction to establish. Mentalism is an area of magic and the

performing arts that focuses on the mind specifically. Within the theories that this paper will
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explore, it is important to mention that they apply to mentalism in an array of complex ways. It

depends on the structure, plot and scripting of the performance. It is not a question of whether or

not they apply, it is a question of how much they apply and when.

Explanation and Exposure of the Effect

The attached video that belongs with this essay is a performance of a classic mental card

effect. Within this effect, the mentalist spreads the cards face down and instructs the participant

to think of one—this happens while the performer has turned away. The mentalist mentions that

he has a prediction on hand and that he has predetermined what card the participant has chosen.

The participant is invited to reveal what card they had chosen. The prediction is opened and

shown to be an exact match of the card the participant chose. To achieve this effect, the

performer uses a rigged deck. The deck is misprinted, so the indices of each card do not match.

Indices, plural of index, are the suit and value indicators located on two corners of the card. For

example, one index of a card would say the ace of clubs, but the other index would say the eight

of diamonds. Seven cards are then repeated in the same order throughout the deck meaning the

mentalist has narrowed down the chances of guessing the participant’s playing card to one in

seven. This misprint of the deck ensures that an entirely new set of cards will be present when

the deck is turned end for end and spread. On the face of the deck is a regular joker to cover the

first card that has different indices.

The initial spread of the deck is to openly demonstrate that the cards are all different,

legal and present. Once the cards are squared, the mentalist directs to the participant to look at

one card in the spread and remember it. The deck is turned end for end and spread again to show
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the seven cards that repeat seven times. The spectator confirms they have selected a card and the

mentalist quickly squares the deck. The mentalist has seven hidden predictions that each

correspond to the repeating cards in the deck. Depending on what card the participant selected,

the mentalist pulls the relevant prediction that is hidden on their person. In the case of the video

provided, there was a legitimate card with a different colored back to cover one of the seven

predictions.

Inattentional Blindness

I will analyze the effect’s exposure above to highlight the potency and presence of the

visual attention psychological theories. Within the visual attention unit from the course I will

first be examining inattentional blindness. A principle known to be commonly utilized by

magicians, inattentional blindness is a principle that also certainly applies to mentalism. Krawitz

(2020) used one slide during his PowerPoint lecture to illustrate inattentional blindness as the

potentiality of the mind not being aware of clear, visible stimuli if our attention isn’t directed at it

(Slide 15). Inattentional blindness is the mind failing to notice the obvious when directed to pay

attention to something else. A psychological study looking at both change blindness and

inattentional blindness describe inattentional blindness as the failure to notice an unexpected

item in the visual stimulus (Jensen, Yao, Street and Simons, 2011). It fails to notice the obvious

because it is not actively looking for the said specific aspect in the visual stimulus. The

unexpected item in the case of this paper, is the rigged pack that is openly shown and spread

across the table.

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Within the performance, the participant did not notice that the entire deck was all the

same cards repeating because she was focusing on one specific aspect within the visual stimulus.

Given the small time-window selecting and memorizing a card along with thoroughly examining

the deck would prove difficult for most people. This applies to what Krawitz (2020) highlighted

in the same slideshow lecture “Load Theory of Attention” (Slide 19). This is when mental

resources are depleted through a primary task relating to the visual stimulus. The primary task, in

this case, is choosing and memorizing a singular playing card. A psychological study was

conducted that tested the audience’s capability to detect visual changes while watching a card

trick. A card during the trick changed color as a discrepancy, similar to the performance that was

demonstrated for the essay. It was found that the audience participation in every case decreased

the likelihood of the change being spotted. (Smith, 2015)

Furthermore, the participant does not suspect the deck of cards because her attention in

the visual stimulus is maintained on the prediction. This is another product of inattentional

blindness.

Change Blindness

The other principle that this paper will highlight within the visual attention unit will be

change blindness. In a PowerPoint lecture, Krawitz (2020) described change blindness as the

mind’s inability to notice a specific change in a visual stimulus (Slide 18). In hindsight, the

change that the mind failed to notice might appear extremely obvious or large. Similarly, to

inattentional blindness, the brain will not register a change without knowing to look for it.
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This psychology theory and principle allows the mentalist to disguise discrepancies in a

routine, enhancing the deceptiveness. In the provided video the mentalist spread the deck three

times. The first time, During the first spread, the faces of the cards were all different, legal and

present while the second spread displayed the seven cards repeating. The participant was unable

to notice the change in the visual stimulus; the spread deck of cards. The change was not noticed

despite it being visible to the participant the entire time. As cited in research done by Yao and

Wood: “Magicians sometimes mask their actions with other, bigger motions, nothing that a ‘big

move covers a small move’” (2019). The bigger movement in the performance was the action of

spreading the cards across the table. This large hand gesture attracts the attention of the

participant, masking the deck repeat-pattern in the cards themselves.

Conclusion

There are many other parallels between mentalism and psychology; however this paper

focused specifically on the visual attention category. Within the video performance that was

included with this paper, there was a mentalism card effect which simultaneously both displayed

inattentional blindness and change blindness. These theories both are often studied together, and

contain many similarities. In the case of the performance, these theories mixed together and both

effectively hid a seemingly obvious discrepancy in the visual stimulus. The theories were proven

to be at play because the performance was successful and the effect deceptive. These examples
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are used as a bridge between sensation and perception neurobiology and the mystery art of

mentalism.

References

Cassidy, B. (2013). The Artful Mentalism of Bob Cassidy  (1st ed., Vol. 2). H&R MAGIC

BOOKS

Krawitz, A. (2020) PSYC 317: Sensation & Perception Topic 7 (Part 2). Visual Attention

[PowerPoint slides] Retrieved from

coursespaces.uvic.ca/pluginfile.php/2211450/mod_resource/content/4/PSYC317-Slides-

Topic07-Part2-VisualAttention.pdf

Smith, T. J. (2015). The role of audience participation and task relevance on change detection

during a card trick. Frontiers in Psychology, 6. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00013

Yao, R., Wood, K., & Simons, D. J. (2019). As if by Magic: An Abrupt Change in Motion

Direction Induces Change Blindness. Psychological Science, 30(3), 436–443. doi:

10.1177/0956797618822969
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Jensen, M. S., Yao, R., Street, W. N., & Simons, D. J. (2011). Change blindness and

inattentional blindness. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 2(5), 529–546. doi:

10.1002/wcs.130