Pailhès Alice, Kuhn Gustav
Psychology Department, Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross, London, SE14 6NW, UK.
Psychol Res. 2021 Jun;85(4):1380-1390. doi: 10.1007/s00426-020-01350-z. Epub 2020 May 14.
Magicians' forcing techniques allow them to covertly influence spectators' choices. We used a type of force (Position Force) to investigate whether explicitly informing people that they are making a decision results in more deliberate decisions. The magician placed four face-down cards on the table in a horizontal row, after which the spectator was asked to select a card by pushing it forward. According to magicians and position effects literature, people should be more likely to choose a card in the third position from their left, because it can be easily reached. We manipulated whether participants were reminded that they were making a decision (explicit choice) or not (implicit choice) when asked to select one of the cards. Two experiments confirmed the efficiency of the Position Force-52% of participants chose the target card. Explicitly informing participants of the decision impairs the success of the force, leading to a more deliberate choice. A range of awareness measures illustrates that participants were unaware of their stereotypical behaviours. Participants who chose the target card significantly underestimated the number of people who would have chosen the same card, and felt as free as the participants who chose another card. Finally, we tested an embodied-cognition idea, but our data suggest that different ways of holding an object do not affect the level of self-control they have over their actions. Results are discussed in terms of theoretical implications regarding free will, Wegner's apparent mental causation, choice blindness and reachability effects.
魔术师的强迫技巧使他们能够暗中影响观众的选择。我们使用了一种强迫方式（位置强迫）来研究明确告知人们他们正在做决定是否会导致更审慎的决定。魔术师将四张面朝下的牌水平排成一排放在桌子上，然后要求观众向前推一张牌来进行选择。根据魔术师和位置效应文献，人们应该更有可能选择从左边数第三个位置的牌，因为它很容易够到。我们操控了在要求参与者选牌时，他们是否被提醒自己正在做决定（明确选择）或未被提醒（隐含选择）。两项实验证实了位置强迫的有效性——52%的参与者选择了目标牌。明确告知参与者他们正在做决定会削弱强迫的成功率，并导致更审慎的选择。一系列的意识测量表明参与者并未意识到他们的刻板行为。选择目标牌的参与者显著低估了会选择同一张牌的人数，并且感觉和选择其他牌的参与者一样自由。最后，我们测试了一个具身认知的观点，但我们的数据表明，持有物体的不同方式并不会影响他们对自身行为的自我控制程度。我们将根据关于自由意志、韦格纳的明显心理因果关系、选择盲视和可达性效应的理论意义来讨论这些结果。
