Division of Neurobiology, Department Biology II, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München Munich, Germany.
Trick 17 Magic Concepts Munich, Germany.
Front Psychol. 2014 Dec 8;5:1408. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01408. eCollection 2014.
Magic tricks usually remain a mystery to the observer. For the sake of science, we offered participants the opportunity to discover the magician's secret method by repeatedly presenting the same trick and asking them to find out how the trick worked. In the context of insightful problem solving, the present work investigated the emotions that participants experience upon solving a magic trick. We assumed that these emotions form the typical "Aha! experience" that accompanies insightful solutions to difficult problems. We aimed to show that Aha! experiences can be triggered by magic tricks and to systematically explore the phenomenology of the Aha! experience by breaking it down into five previously postulated dimensions. 34 video clips of different magic tricks were presented up to three times to 50 participants who had to find out how the trick was accomplished, and to indicate whether they had experienced an Aha! during the solving process. Participants then performed a comprehensive quantitative and qualitative assessment of their Aha! experiences which was repeated after 14 days to control for its reliability. 41% of all suggested solutions were accompanied by an Aha! experience. The quantitative assessment remained stable across time in all five dimensions. Happiness was rated as the most important dimension. This primacy of positive emotions was also reflected in participants' qualitative self-reports which contained more emotional than cognitive aspects. Implementing magic tricks as problem solving task, we could show that strong Aha! experiences can be triggered if a trick is solved. We could at least partially capture the phenomenology of Aha! by identifying one prevailing aspect (positive emotions), a new aspect (release of tension upon gaining insight into a magic trick) and one less important aspect (impasse).
魔术通常对观察者来说是一个谜。为了科学的目的，我们让参与者有机会通过反复展示相同的魔术并要求他们找出魔术的工作原理来发现魔术师的秘密方法。在富有洞察力的问题解决背景下，本研究调查了参与者在解决魔术时所经历的情绪。我们假设这些情绪形成了伴随困难问题的富有洞察力的解决方案的典型“顿悟体验”。我们旨在表明，顿悟体验可以通过魔术来触发，并通过将其分解为之前提出的五个维度来系统地探索顿悟体验的现象学。向 50 名参与者展示了 34 个不同魔术的视频剪辑，他们必须找出魔术是如何完成的，并表明他们在解决过程中是否有过顿悟体验。然后，参与者对他们的顿悟体验进行了全面的定量和定性评估，并在 14 天后重复评估以控制其可靠性。所有建议解决方案中有 41%伴随着顿悟体验。在所有五个维度中，定量评估在整个时间内都保持稳定。幸福感被评为最重要的维度。这种积极情绪的优势也反映在参与者的定性自我报告中，其中包含更多的情感而非认知方面。通过将魔术作为解决问题的任务来实施，我们可以证明，如果一个魔术被解决，强烈的顿悟体验是可以被触发的。我们至少可以通过识别一个主要方面（积极情绪）、一个新方面（在洞察魔术时释放紧张）和一个不太重要的方面（僵局）来部分捕捉到顿悟体验的现象学。
