I came across an article in Wired the other day, and it got me thinking. It’s about the famous Las Vegas magic act, Penn and Teller, who make their show out of explaining to the audience – with all appropriate flair and drama – exactly how their trick is done. And when they do that, it still works.

Teller, the silent half of the performing pair, explains to reporter Jonah Lehrer that this is because magic tricks take advantange of what I think of as ‘blind spots’ in our brains. We’re constantly being required to process so much information that our brain simply fills in and skips steps, seeing what it thinks must be there.

I remember learning about this at university and the lecturer leading [...]