Pailhes, Alice and Kuhn, Gustav. 2020. The apparent action causation: Using a magician forcing technique to investigate our illusory sense of agency over the outcome of our choices. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 73(11), pp. 1784-1795. ISSN 1747-0218 [Article]

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Abstract or Description

We often fall victim of an illusory sense of control and agency over our thoughts and actions. Magicians are masters at exploiting these illusions and forcing techniques provide a powerful way to study apparent action causation – the illusion that our action caused the outcome we get. In this paper, we used the Criss-Cross force to study whether people can tell the difference between an action which had an impact on the outcome they get and one which has no impact. In the Criss-Cross force, participants are asked to cut to a card, and whilst they are genuinely free to cut the cards at any position, the cut does not impact the card they are given (i.e. they always get the top card). We investigate the psychological processes that underpin the success of this force. Experiment 1 (N=60) showed that participants cannot tell the difference between a forced and a controlled outcome. Experiment 2 (N=90) showed that contrary to common magicians’ knowledge, misdirection does not play a role in the success of the force. Finally, experiment 3 (N=60) suggests that rather than misdirection, an attribute substitution error explains why people fail to understand that their action do not have an impact on the outcome they get. Debriefings also shows the importance of participants’ expectations in the perception of the trick, as well as the role of prediction of the outcome in participants’ sense of agency over the events.

Item Type:	Article
Identification Number (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1177/1747021820932916
Additional Information:	The JASP file with Bayesian analyses is available at: https://osf.io/hbmn8. Excel data files for Experiment 2 and 3 are available at: https://osf.io/hw54e and https://osf.io/96zut.
Keywords:	Magic tricks, sense of agency, illusion of control, forcing techniques, free will, misdirection
Departments, Centres and Research Units:	Psychology
Dates:	Date Event 4 May 2020 Accepted 1 June 2020 Published Online 1 November 2020 Published
Item ID:	28419
Date Deposited:	06 May 2020 14:50
Last Modified:	09 Jun 2021 21:17
Peer Reviewed:	Yes, this version has been peer-reviewed.
URI:	https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/28419

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