The headmaster of our local primary school performs a magic show at this time of year, but the parents aren’t invited. This child-centred approach is exactly what you would want from a school even though it’s frustrating for a neuroscientist because magic is a really interesting way of studying the brain.
Optical illusions have given us very useful insights into how perception works. Tricking the visual system into thinking things are different shapes or colours than they actually are tells us how the brain works in everyday situations as well. Our nervous system is really about filtering out rather than relaying information - if we were aware of all of our sensory inputs all the time, we would rapidly be overwhelmed. Attention is the way we direct the spotlight, ignoring the background and focusing on what matters.
Magicians rely on this to misdirect our attention. For example, there are basic circuits in the primary visual cortex that are tuned into where a pair of eyes are looking. Very handy when you’re trying pull a rabbit from a hat, or control a couple of hundred screaming kids - now that’s real magic.
Dr Daniel Glaser is director of Science Gallery at King’s College London
