I Didn’t See a Thing — What Magicians Can Teach Us About the Science of Attention
You’re much worse at noticing things than you think, and magicians use this to divert our attention from things that are literally in front of our eyes
When it was announced on the radio that there’d been a cop shooting at Grove Hall in Boston, Kenneth Conley, like many of his fellow officers, raced to the scene. Four suspects were making their getaway in a Lexus and a high speed chase followed, resulting in one police car crashing and the suspects’ vehicle being abandoned. The four made the rest of their escape on foot and Kenneth Conley jumped out of his own police car and followed. He saw one of the suspects, Smut Brown, scale a fence. Conley chased after him, doggedly pursued and eventually captured him.
It should have been a good night’s work. Instead it led to Conley’s imprisonment and a case that intrigued psychologists — all because of something Conley said he never saw.
What Conley didn’t see was devastating — he failed to see fellow officers beating up another suspect on the other side of the fence. This fifth suspect was actually a black undercover cop also in pursuit. When the undercover cop sued Conley and his fellow officers, Conley’s version…
