color-changing card trick
April 22, 2010 9:05 PM   Subscribe

 
I love this card trick.
posted by andoatnp at 9:21 PM on April 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


If it weren't for my crippling social phobia I would have been fleeced of my life savings about four times over (that's, like, $850.00!) I noticed nothing.
posted by lysistrata at 9:35 PM on April 22, 2010 [5 favorites]


que diriez-vous du gorille
posted by edgeways at 9:36 PM on April 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


Also the comment I just posted MAY or MAY NOT have completely failed to use the subjunctive correctly. I have a crippling grammar phobia as well. Unless the sentence was correct, in which case I totally knew what I was doing the whole time
posted by lysistrata at 9:38 PM on April 22, 2010


I think I've seen this here on MeFi before.


That, or I just was too distracted by the cards.
posted by niles at 9:49 PM on April 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


We see color changes like this all the time when we change our illumination from daylight to incandescent or fluorescent. Perhaps that's why they're hard to recall - do we really want to walk around thinking "Hmm, my carpet looked a lot bluer this morning."
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:13 PM on April 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


Joe in Australia, I think that the stuff they are demonstrating here is much more than just simple colour constancy. Even if they had swapped out the woman for a different person, you would not have noticed the difference (for evidence, see the construction door link below).

Really, the important factor is whether or not you are attending to the right parts of the scenes. I mean, most people watching the video probably were too intent on figuring out the card trick to even consider the lady's shirt. In the words of my old advisor, you were looking, but not seeing.

For more on attention, see:
Visual Cognition Lab demos [disclaimer: I used to work here]
Construction door study

Kuhn, Amlani & Rensink (2008). Accessible abstract.
posted by tickingclock at 11:20 PM on April 22, 2010 [4 favorites]


I watched the first half thinking, "there's all these camera pans and zooms! he could be doing anything with the cards." Then in the second half I paid attention to the other color changes, and I completely missed the obvious handoff of the red deck.

I am meta-inattentive.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 11:35 PM on April 22, 2010 [2 favorites]


I kept waiting for the gorilla costume on the left side of the second half to be relevant. Ah well.
posted by DoctorFedora at 12:12 AM on April 23, 2010 [7 favorites]


Construction door study
Unless those dudes are identical twins, I have a really hard time believing I'd miss that. You look at people's faces when you talk to them.
posted by juv3nal at 1:13 AM on April 23, 2010


okay. what i caught...

that there was something distinctly strange about the lady after she'd selected her card. first inclination was that it was a different lady and was wondering what the shenanigans were about.

then i thought they must be up to something as there's no way they were trying to pass off the card trick as a real trick as he'd obviously switched decks.

boy what a surprise to see what they'd really been up to. well, not really; metafilter taught me a long time ago to pay no attention to the man in front of the curtain. or his damn beans.
posted by artof.mulata at 2:09 AM on April 23, 2010


I'm not a moderator here but due to the quality of the "answers" here I feel compelled to remind you people of the instructions we are given. The very instructions that makes this place to be the helpful and friendly place that it is:

"Ask MetaFilter is as useful as you make it. Please limit comments to answers or help in finding an answer. Wisecracks don't help people find answers. Thanks"
posted by JeNeSaisQuoi at 3:29 AM on April 23, 2010 [4 favorites]


JeNeSaisQuoi - that took me significantly longer to work out than it should have done...
posted by sodium lights the horizon at 4:04 AM on April 23, 2010 [1 favorite]


I noticed the tablecloth but none of the others.

I also noticed this is from Richard Wiseman. I just started a book by him called "59 Seconds". It some kind of self-helpy type book which I normally violently eschew but it seemed more sciencey. Stupid or good?
posted by DU at 4:25 AM on April 23, 2010


juv3nal
Construction door study
Unless those dudes are identical twins, I have a really hard time believing I'd miss that. You look at people's faces when you talk to them.


Heh. That's what I thought too before it happened to me. It must have been a local high school or college experiment, but I was walking through a busy parking lot in my town when a boy about 18 or so called me over to his car and asked me if I knew how to check for oil.

I said sure, but you will need a rag or something to wipe the dipstick. The hood was up on the car and he disappeared behind it as he went to get a rag. He then came back with the rag, I checked the oil, told him he was fine and was about to head off. He then asked me if I noticed anything strange during the whole experience. I said no, not really.

As I walked off, it was the question that struck me as strange and I began to think it might have been some sort of scam. I then noticed a group of two other people sitting inconspicuously within sight of the car and taking notes. So I stopped and watched what was happening.

Like the construction door study, there were two boys, the first one calls someone over and asks if they could check the oil. The second boy comes back with the rag. The crazy thing is, I had heard of this experiment beforehand and it still "worked" on me. The two fellows did *not* look particularly alike btw. The act of focusing in on the engine and checking the oil made me completely oblivious to the fact that I was dealing with two people.
posted by jeremias at 4:34 AM on April 23, 2010 [2 favorites]


And I don't understand whatever joke JeNeSaisQuoi is making, which is making me still angrier.

Voila! The website used to have a green background, but suddenly it's blue! Or at least, that's what's implied..
posted by FatherDagon at 5:28 AM on April 23, 2010 [2 favorites]


Is it "Ghostbusters II"?
posted by kcds at 5:38 AM on April 23, 2010


Well I missed the gorilla suit in both of them.
posted by MtDewd at 6:14 AM on April 23, 2010


and yet another
posted by warbaby at 7:38 AM on April 23, 2010


Never switch a switcher.
posted by Dr-Baa at 7:52 AM on April 23, 2010 [3 favorites]


Unless those dudes are identical twins, I have a really hard time believing I'd miss that. You look at people's faces when you talk to them.

75% of people did not notice when one person replaced another in an experiment.
posted by callmejay at 8:01 AM on April 23, 2010


I noticed her shirt change, but that was the only one I noticed. Of course, I have one eye on my 11 month old son who is steadily tearing apart my living room, but I don't think I would have noticed any way. What I *did* notice was all the camera pans and zooms, which led me to believe that shenanigans of some sort were definitely afoot.
posted by antifuse at 9:27 AM on April 23, 2010


I never noticed when they switched actresses in That Obscure Object of Desire.
posted by Obscure Reference at 10:16 AM on April 23, 2010


The back of the cards appears to be red because they changed the color of the table cloth, amirite?
posted by sour cream at 2:17 PM on April 23, 2010


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