Magic trick reveals unconscious knowledge

People 'know' what they don't believe they've seen, study shows

WASHINGTON — Magic tricks prey on people’s subpar powers of perception, but new work finds that the brain has tricks of its own up its sleeve: People notice more than they think.

In the research, presented November 12 at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, Luis Martinez of CSIC- Miguel Hernandez University in Spain and colleagues amazingly “read minds” with the Princess Card Trick, invented by magician Henry Hardin in 1905.