What do you think?
Rate this book
The Illusionist Brain: The Neuroscience of Magic
How magicians exploit the natural functioning of our brains to astonish and amaze us
How do magicians make us see the impossible? The Illusionist Brain takes you on an unforgettable journey through the inner workings of the human mind, revealing how magicians achieve their spectacular and seemingly impossible effects by interfering with your cognitive processes. Along the way, this lively and informative book provides a guided tour of modern neuroscience, using magic as a lens for understanding the unconscious and automatic functioning of our brains.
We construct reality from the information stored in our memories and received through our senses, and our brains are remarkably adept at tricking us into believing that our experience is continuous. In fact, our minds create our perception of reality by elaborating meanings and continuities from incomplete information, and while this strategy carries clear benefits for survival, it comes with blind spots that magicians know how to exploit. Jordi Cam� and Luis Mart�nez explore the many different ways illusionists manipulate our attention--making us look but not see--and take advantage of our individual predispositions and fragile memories.
The Illusionist Brain draws on the latest findings in neuroscience to explain how magic deceives us, surprises us, and amazes us, and demonstrates how illusionists skillfully "hack" our brains to alter how we perceive things and influence what we imagine.
How do magicians make us see the impossible? The Illusionist Brain takes you on an unforgettable journey through the inner workings of the human mind, revealing how magicians achieve their spectacular and seemingly impossible effects by interfering with your cognitive processes. Along the way, this lively and informative book provides a guided tour of modern neuroscience, using magic as a lens for understanding the unconscious and automatic functioning of our brains.
We construct reality from the information stored in our memories and received through our senses, and our brains are remarkably adept at tricking us into believing that our experience is continuous. In fact, our minds create our perception of reality by elaborating meanings and continuities from incomplete information, and while this strategy carries clear benefits for survival, it comes with blind spots that magicians know how to exploit. Jordi Cam� and Luis Mart�nez explore the many different ways illusionists manipulate our attention--making us look but not see--and take advantage of our individual predispositions and fragile memories.
The Illusionist Brain draws on the latest findings in neuroscience to explain how magic deceives us, surprises us, and amazes us, and demonstrates how illusionists skillfully "hack" our brains to alter how we perceive things and influence what we imagine.
238 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 7, 2022
26 people are currently reading
258 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
June 19, 2023
For me, this book was a book of two halves, and a missed opportunity. About half of the book is about how the brain works, covering various aspects of cognition and memory; and about half the book is about magic. Sadly for me, the link between the two wasn't especially strong, and tended to be discussed in generalities, lacking details in specific examples. I also found the presentation quite dry, and the language unnecessarily verbose in many places (although this could have been due to the translation).
June 23, 2022
الإنسان كائن يعتمد على الرؤية بشكل كبير ، لدرجة أن أكثر من ثلث القشرة الدماغية مخصص لمعالجة المعلومات التي تلتقطها شبكية العين. من خلال عملية الانتباه واستخدام ذاكرتنا قصيرة المدى ، يقوم الدماغ بتصفية واختيار المعلومات التي يعتبرها مفيدة فقط في أي لحظة. هذه المعلومات غير مكتملة ، تم التقاطها بطريقة مجزأة في كل من المكان والزمان ، ومع ذلك يجب على الدماغ استخدام موارده المعقدة لخلق وهم الواقع المستمر. وهكذا ، عندما نرى مشهدًا أمامنا ، فإن أدمغتنا لا ترى انعكاسًا دقيقًا للواقع بل تستنتجه. للقيام بذلك ، تعتمد أدمغتنا بشكل كبير على المعرفة السابقة التي تراكمت لدينا في ذاكرتنا طويلة المدى.
.
Jordi Gami
The Illusionist Brain
Translated By #Maher_Razouk
.
Jordi Gami
The Illusionist Brain
Translated By #Maher_Razouk
January 3, 2023
الإنسان كائن يعتمد على الرؤية بشكل كبير ، لدرجة أن أكثر من ثلث القشرة الدماغية مخصص لمعالجة المعلومات التي تلتقطها شبكية العين. من خلال عملية الانتباه واستخدام ذاكرتنا قصيرة المدى ، يقوم الدماغ بتصفية واختيار المعلومات التي يعتبرها مفيدة فقط في أي لحظة. هذه المعلومات غير مكتملة ، تم التقاطها بطريقة مجزأة في كل من المكان والزمان ، ومع ذلك يجب على الدماغ استخدام موارده المعقدة لخلق وهم الواقع المستمر. وهكذا ، عندما نرى مشهدًا أمامنا ، فإن أدمغتنا لا ترى انعكاسًا دقيقًا للواقع بل تستنتجه. للقيام بذلك ، تعتمد أدمغتنا بشكل كبير على المعرفة السابقة التي تراكمت لدينا في ذاكرتنا طويلة المدى.
.
Jordi Gami
The Illusionist Brain
Translated By #Maher_Razouk
.
Jordi Gami
The Illusionist Brain
Translated By #Maher_Razouk
October 27, 2022
Gave this one 5 stars since I’m fascinated these days with how the brain processes sensory data, especially vision, in order to help us make a variety of decisions about the reality we’re experiencing. The author explains how magicians, even pickpockets, use shortfalls in our mental software to their advantage. This book won’t teach you how to perform tricks, but it will help you better understand why a skilled illusionist can mesmerize an audience.
July 8, 2024
I read this for a neuroscience book club I co-run. Message me if you want our book summary :)
I liked this book. The topic is pretty niche, and I had never read a book about magic before of any kind, and a book on the neuroscience of magic piqued my interest. This book explores how magic, the art of creating impossible effects that violate our expectations by the apparent transgression of natural laws, works. Specifically the authors explain the cognitive processes behind the art of magic. This book is fundamentally an exploration of neuroscience, through the lens of magic.
Magic works because it takes advantage of the brain’s normal processing. Magic can manipulate our memories, condition us, and influence our intuitive decisions, all without our conscious awareness that it is doing so.
The book goes over a lot of fundamental findings in neuroscience about sensory perception, and covers that material accurately and well. However, the organization of the book is pretty bad and the sections written by the two authors kind of sit next to each other instead of seamlessly mixing, and sections are often redundant or misplaced. Also, a lot of the QR codes in the book don't work, which made the book feel kind of janky. Overall though, a way more thorough and accurate coverage of the neuroscience of perception than I was expecting!
One fundamental concept in the book is that we live in illusion. We construct our own reality from the information we receive from the universe around us, and we do so unconsciously. The data from the world around us is incomplete and the brain fills in these gaps using past experiences and other sources, resulting in guesses that are sometimes inaccurate. Regarding vision, the main sensory modality through which we perceive magic tricks, we have more than 100 million photoreceptors in each of our retinas that receive about 70 gigabytes of information per second, equivalent to watching 70 movies per second. The brain can’t process all of this information, so it filters what we see. Only about 0.0014% of the information that hits the retinas is actually transmitted to the brain. To complete the picture, the brain relies on all kinds of tricks including filling in low acuity areas of the visual field using information from high acuity parts, filling in gaps between saccades (we're basically blind for 4 waking hours each day as our eyeballs make tiny jumps in fixation to refresh the image and prevent habituation), relying on past experiences (aka memory) to predict what we'll see and disambiguate stimuli, and many many others.
Contrast is another important concept in the book. The retina prioritizes points in space where light changes in intensity by using “on” and “off” detector neurons. “On” neurons detect local changes from less to more luminance and “off” neurons detect more to less luminance. When one is activated, the other is actively suppressed, thus enhancing contrast. Like retinal cells, they don’t respond to absolute value, but rather to change. In a scene, the points of maximum contrast are those that capture our attention, a fact that magic uses to its advantage. Contrast may be spatial or temporal or explicit (present in physical reality) or implicit (stored in our memories). Magicians must constantly modulate contrast in a scene. The aim is to have the audience’s attention under control at all times so that it can be led inadvertently to an impossible outcome. Magicians do this by either enhancing or avoiding contrast.
One interesting thing about magic I learned from this book is that magic tricks for children have to be done quite differently than for adults, due to the much lower predictive coding in children. Thus, adults will have their attention reliably directed in certain ways, and will "see" something that isn't there because the magician's actions to that point have all been leading to a high confidence prediction that this event will happen. Children don't predict that event as strongly, and are thus less susceptible to this type of illusion.
Overall, I liked this book and thought the neuroscience was quite well presented. I also learned some interesting things about magic including how magicians manipulate contrast, practice exogenous capture of attention, and use our own predictive coding against us. However, I would have loved to see more info about the mechanics of magic, and see that tied into the neuroscience findings. Other parts of the book, like the section on art, while interesting, were not super relevant to the main theme. The book would benefit from a more heavy handed editor for fluidity and conciseness.
I liked this book. The topic is pretty niche, and I had never read a book about magic before of any kind, and a book on the neuroscience of magic piqued my interest. This book explores how magic, the art of creating impossible effects that violate our expectations by the apparent transgression of natural laws, works. Specifically the authors explain the cognitive processes behind the art of magic. This book is fundamentally an exploration of neuroscience, through the lens of magic.
Magic works because it takes advantage of the brain’s normal processing. Magic can manipulate our memories, condition us, and influence our intuitive decisions, all without our conscious awareness that it is doing so.
The book goes over a lot of fundamental findings in neuroscience about sensory perception, and covers that material accurately and well. However, the organization of the book is pretty bad and the sections written by the two authors kind of sit next to each other instead of seamlessly mixing, and sections are often redundant or misplaced. Also, a lot of the QR codes in the book don't work, which made the book feel kind of janky. Overall though, a way more thorough and accurate coverage of the neuroscience of perception than I was expecting!
One fundamental concept in the book is that we live in illusion. We construct our own reality from the information we receive from the universe around us, and we do so unconsciously. The data from the world around us is incomplete and the brain fills in these gaps using past experiences and other sources, resulting in guesses that are sometimes inaccurate. Regarding vision, the main sensory modality through which we perceive magic tricks, we have more than 100 million photoreceptors in each of our retinas that receive about 70 gigabytes of information per second, equivalent to watching 70 movies per second. The brain can’t process all of this information, so it filters what we see. Only about 0.0014% of the information that hits the retinas is actually transmitted to the brain. To complete the picture, the brain relies on all kinds of tricks including filling in low acuity areas of the visual field using information from high acuity parts, filling in gaps between saccades (we're basically blind for 4 waking hours each day as our eyeballs make tiny jumps in fixation to refresh the image and prevent habituation), relying on past experiences (aka memory) to predict what we'll see and disambiguate stimuli, and many many others.
Contrast is another important concept in the book. The retina prioritizes points in space where light changes in intensity by using “on” and “off” detector neurons. “On” neurons detect local changes from less to more luminance and “off” neurons detect more to less luminance. When one is activated, the other is actively suppressed, thus enhancing contrast. Like retinal cells, they don’t respond to absolute value, but rather to change. In a scene, the points of maximum contrast are those that capture our attention, a fact that magic uses to its advantage. Contrast may be spatial or temporal or explicit (present in physical reality) or implicit (stored in our memories). Magicians must constantly modulate contrast in a scene. The aim is to have the audience’s attention under control at all times so that it can be led inadvertently to an impossible outcome. Magicians do this by either enhancing or avoiding contrast.
One interesting thing about magic I learned from this book is that magic tricks for children have to be done quite differently than for adults, due to the much lower predictive coding in children. Thus, adults will have their attention reliably directed in certain ways, and will "see" something that isn't there because the magician's actions to that point have all been leading to a high confidence prediction that this event will happen. Children don't predict that event as strongly, and are thus less susceptible to this type of illusion.
Overall, I liked this book and thought the neuroscience was quite well presented. I also learned some interesting things about magic including how magicians manipulate contrast, practice exogenous capture of attention, and use our own predictive coding against us. However, I would have loved to see more info about the mechanics of magic, and see that tied into the neuroscience findings. Other parts of the book, like the section on art, while interesting, were not super relevant to the main theme. The book would benefit from a more heavy handed editor for fluidity and conciseness.
June 22, 2024
I enjoyed this book a lot, but suspect it may come across as a bit dry for many audiences. I am a neuroscientist with a background in cognitive psychology and am already familiar with most concepts presented in the book, which I think made it easier for me to connect those concepts with the various kinds of magic tricks.
I particularly loved learning about all the contextual factors that can be so dependent on the personality of a magician and their audience. One of the most interesting examples of this to me was learning that children often don't experience some magic tricks because their brains have not yet developed the perceptual heuristics that nearly all adults have.
I also had no idea of the extent that magicians could modulate perception. For example, in the disappearing bowl illusion, audience members can be made to literally observe a bowl being thrown by the magician, even though the magician never actually tossed anything. I've seen various iterations of psychology experiments like this, and was getting excited about possibilities of translating perceptual phenomenon to magic tricks.
Some of the book is more philosophical. I liked some of this part, such as thinking about the role that magic could have as a paradigm to study the brain. But other questions seemed practically relevant only for magician, such as "why are magic shows not as popular as movies?" I sometimes came away feeling that the intended audience book were 'neuroscientists who were also magicians,' a truly small group.
I particularly loved learning about all the contextual factors that can be so dependent on the personality of a magician and their audience. One of the most interesting examples of this to me was learning that children often don't experience some magic tricks because their brains have not yet developed the perceptual heuristics that nearly all adults have.
I also had no idea of the extent that magicians could modulate perception. For example, in the disappearing bowl illusion, audience members can be made to literally observe a bowl being thrown by the magician, even though the magician never actually tossed anything. I've seen various iterations of psychology experiments like this, and was getting excited about possibilities of translating perceptual phenomenon to magic tricks.
Some of the book is more philosophical. I liked some of this part, such as thinking about the role that magic could have as a paradigm to study the brain. But other questions seemed practically relevant only for magician, such as "why are magic shows not as popular as movies?" I sometimes came away feeling that the intended audience book were 'neuroscientists who were also magicians,' a truly small group.
July 23, 2022
i read this one by accident on netgalley and it was an unexpected delight
June 1, 2022
A fascinating look into our brain on magic. As long as these performances have existed, science has largely ignored them. Now, finally, neuroscientists are taking a look at magic tricks and how they fool our brain into thinking that the impossible is possible. The writing is easy to understand and even the most technical terms are explained in an approachable way. This volume discusses how our brains work, how we experience the world and make memories, and how all these processes make magic happen. There is a part devoted to the history of magic, the differences and similarities between these performances and movies, theater, music and other artistic expressions, and many fun facts from the magicians themselves, including examples from legendary performers, which was catnip to the Penn and Teller fan in me. The audiobook references some additional, printed, material, so I wasn’t sure if it would have been better to get a printed copy instead. In the end, Gary Tiedemann’s excellent narration, made the experience better. His diction is clear, and he sounds like a knowledgeable friend explaining his favorite topic with a sense of wonder. The book was originally published in Spanish and I have to say that I never knew that magic was so big in Spain (even after living there for decades myself). This book blew my mind almost as much as a magic performance.
I chose to listen to this audiobook and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, #NetGalley/#Tantor Audio!
I chose to listen to this audiobook and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, #NetGalley/#Tantor Audio!
March 9, 2023
This is more neuroscience for magicians than magic for neuroscientists. Given I know more about neuroscience than magic, I got frustrated at times by the assumed magic knowledge (to be clear, magic as in entertaining tricks here, no wizards). Nevertheless, it was fascinating to see how reliable our mental blind spots are - so much so, that magicians can rely on us not recording memories if they move fast enough, or responding to unconscious cues, or simply believing what we have been told we saw. There are QR codes peppered through linking to online video, which was odd but effective if you have you phone by you when you read. The neuroscience was uncontroversial and well explained. I was also surprised to discover that I - someone who is driven mad by needing to know how the trick is done and hence made pretty uncomfortably by magic shows - am in the minority. Most people find the surprise pleasurable, apparently. Must be like enjoying jump scares!
August 9, 2022
I wish I could wave a magic wand over this book and bring it to life. The writing is so plodding, obtuse, or detailed that it is hard to feel any magic in it. I fully appreciate the difficulty of the task of delving into the neuroscience of illusion and having to write about it all. Even so, I could have used a lot more snippets of the magic that mystifies us commoners, then an analysis. Somehow, having to use my phone or iPad to read the QR codes to get to an illustration, was a goych. I wanted more. More examples, more fun, more magic.
May 23, 2023
The Illusionist Brain is about perception and how magicians hijack those processes to perform the tricks of their trade. For example, some magicians have nimble fingers. There is a magic trick where you pickpocket people and steal their watches or wallets. You draw their attention to something else and take their stuff. Attention is the name of the game with magic.
The human brain is a marvelous organ, but it has flaws. The brain constructs our reality from a variety of sources and makes a lot of educated guesses. Furthermore, the brain's channel capacity isn't robust enough to take in everything that happens. As a result, we are gullible and easy to fool. When we see something, we have a blind spot where the optic nerve connects to the retina. The brain conveniently edits this blind spot out of our perception. When we look at something, our eyes make micromovements called saccades. These movements are necessary because if we fixate on something for too long, we stop seeing it altogether.
I have one problem with the book. Sometimes, instead of images, the book has a QR Code that you must scan with a device. I suppose it's the future, but I would like to read without relying on my smartphone.
Besides that one flaw, the book is excellent. Thanks for reading my review, and see you next time.
The human brain is a marvelous organ, but it has flaws. The brain constructs our reality from a variety of sources and makes a lot of educated guesses. Furthermore, the brain's channel capacity isn't robust enough to take in everything that happens. As a result, we are gullible and easy to fool. When we see something, we have a blind spot where the optic nerve connects to the retina. The brain conveniently edits this blind spot out of our perception. When we look at something, our eyes make micromovements called saccades. These movements are necessary because if we fixate on something for too long, we stop seeing it altogether.
I have one problem with the book. Sometimes, instead of images, the book has a QR Code that you must scan with a device. I suppose it's the future, but I would like to read without relying on my smartphone.
Besides that one flaw, the book is excellent. Thanks for reading my review, and see you next time.
June 6, 2022
Mind blowing!
The Illusionist Brain super eye opening, it gave me an inside look at how our brains work and how magicians are able to essentially use our brains against us. The book shares insight from neuroscientists who have now started looking into magic tricks and how they trick our brain into thinking that the impossible is possible.
The book was very well written and kept me interested throughout. The one thing I will mention is that there were a lot of references to diagrams in the book that were not accessible through the audiobook version – something to keep in mind.
I recommend this book to anyone that’s always wondered how magicians are able to make us see the impossible.
Thank You to Jordi Cami; Luis M. Martine and Tantor Audio, for the audio-digital ARC provided through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review!
The Illusionist Brain super eye opening, it gave me an inside look at how our brains work and how magicians are able to essentially use our brains against us. The book shares insight from neuroscientists who have now started looking into magic tricks and how they trick our brain into thinking that the impossible is possible.
The book was very well written and kept me interested throughout. The one thing I will mention is that there were a lot of references to diagrams in the book that were not accessible through the audiobook version – something to keep in mind.
I recommend this book to anyone that’s always wondered how magicians are able to make us see the impossible.
Thank You to Jordi Cami; Luis M. Martine and Tantor Audio, for the audio-digital ARC provided through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review!
April 17, 2023
A beautiful excavation from the world of magic into the world of neuroscience. The author has done a tremendous job connecting the dots between art and science. I am always looking out for books that have a tinge of salt (in any form) in them which keeps the reader captivated, and this book relays cognition, perception, awareness, intuition, psychology, and neurophysiology through the effects of magic. It also describes a unique relationship between a magician and his/her spectators and the subtleties taken into account when a trick or act is done. The examples, texts, and studies quoted and referenced in the book also give a glimpse of how much the author has put into writing this book.
However, at some points, I do believe the book delves more so much into neuroscience, which would make somebody not familiar with the area or background a bit uncomfortable.
However, at some points, I do believe the book delves more so much into neuroscience, which would make somebody not familiar with the area or background a bit uncomfortable.
December 2, 2022
A different, and long overdue perspective on how magic and illusions work from a neuroscience view. As a logical, rational person, I've always been fascinated by magic tricks and OF COURSE I want to know how they work. This book manages to explain how tricks work, mostly by focusing on simple card or coin tricks, without actually revealing any secrets - which is an illusion in itself!
Thought the use of pretty women as assistants might have got more of a mention as a distraction.
The use of QR codes in a printed book of text is truly ridiculous. If I am reading an actual physical book, I do not want to be holding my phone in the other hand to hover over a QR code to see an image. If it saved money, it was not worth it.
Interesting it was translated from the original Spanish.
Thought the use of pretty women as assistants might have got more of a mention as a distraction.
The use of QR codes in a printed book of text is truly ridiculous. If I am reading an actual physical book, I do not want to be holding my phone in the other hand to hover over a QR code to see an image. If it saved money, it was not worth it.
Interesting it was translated from the original Spanish.
June 6, 2022
This book was a random topic for me but ended up being super interesting. A journey through how the mind works and how magicians and illusionists are able to pull off their tricks, This delves into the Nueroscience behind the illusions and gave a very thorough account of several different methods and principles that are commonly used. The topics of perception and attention control were particularly interesting to me and I can't wait to hear any new research about how Neuroscientists use magic as a means of research into the unconscious brain. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!
September 9, 2023
An unusual book where two scientists explore the relationship between neuroscience and magic.
Some of the illustrations are by QR code which I have never seen before. I would have liked a list of the links also. It does allow you to watch videos referred to in the text but means you have to have your phone handy when reading the book. There are some interesting insights but it is clear that this is an area where more research is needed.
Some of the illustrations are by QR code which I have never seen before. I would have liked a list of the links also. It does allow you to watch videos referred to in the text but means you have to have your phone handy when reading the book. There are some interesting insights but it is clear that this is an area where more research is needed.
July 14, 2022
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for letting me review this book.
Interesting how the authors tell you how the eye works and parts of the eye that helps us see. How the brain fills in the gaps; which is pretty interesting. I better understand the saying, “The hand is quicker than the eye.”. I like how the authors included a bit of history of past magicians. This was a good read.
Interesting how the authors tell you how the eye works and parts of the eye that helps us see. How the brain fills in the gaps; which is pretty interesting. I better understand the saying, “The hand is quicker than the eye.”. I like how the authors included a bit of history of past magicians. This was a good read.
April 17, 2023
The topic is fascinating and the authors did an insane amount of research, but the book reads like a Medicare bachelor thesis. Wasted opportunity.
Currently reading
July 3, 2023En la pagina 125 del libro que esta en la juan march hay una pestaña mia
October 14, 2023
This was more about how the brain works and why and how it can be manipulated than truly being about magic. The details and examples used were interesting and effective.
June 20, 2022
Anyone interested in slight of hand magic and the neuroscience of how these magic tricks are possible would enjoy this book. The first six or seven chapters cover the basics of neuroscience and how the brain works in instances of like. The latter chapters are dedicated to the magic of magic!
Given my history and love of neuropsychology, I thought this would be a 5 star for sure. And while I did enjoy it, it read much like a thesis statement or dissertation citing SO. MANY. STUDIES. The first chapters were my favorite and while I enjoy magic, I just wasn’t as interested in that piece. Overall, a very well researched book and inclusive of magicians and scientists from around the world.
Given my history and love of neuropsychology, I thought this would be a 5 star for sure. And while I did enjoy it, it read much like a thesis statement or dissertation citing SO. MANY. STUDIES. The first chapters were my favorite and while I enjoy magic, I just wasn’t as interested in that piece. Overall, a very well researched book and inclusive of magicians and scientists from around the world.
June 18, 2024
It suggested that certain things were true for everyone when they weren’t true for me (since I did not fall for certain tricks or illusions that it said I would have due to how the brain works). It also suggested that autism involves problems with focus which is false. ADHD does which the book never mentions. People with only autism have no issue focusing their attention, they just don’t focus on what is expected of them. Only those with ADHD struggle with focusing their attention, even when it’s something they enjoy.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews