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The Magic Grasp: Motor Expertise in Deception

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Cristiana Cavina-Pratesi, Dr Magdelena Ietswaart

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Abstract

Background: Most of us are poor at faking actions. Kinematic studies have shown that when pretending to pick up imagined objects (pantomimed actions), we move and shape our hands quite differently from when grasping real ones. These differences between real and pantomimed actions have been linked to separate brain pathways specialized for different kinds of visuomotor guidance. Yet professional magicians regularly use pantomimed actions to deceive audiences.Methodology and Principal Findings: In this study, we tested whether, despite their skill, magicians might still show kinematic differences between grasping actions made toward real versus imagined objects. We found that their pantomimed actions in fact closely resembled real grasps when the object was visible (but displaced) (Experiment 1), but failed to do so when the object was absent (Experiment 2).Conclusions and Significance: We suggest that although the occipito-parietal visuomotor system in the dorsal stream is designed to guide goal-directed actions, prolonged practice may enable it to calibrate actions based on visual inputs displaced from the action.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Cavina-Pratesi C, Kuhn G, Ietswaart M, Milner AD

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: PLoS ONE

Year: 2011

Volume: 6

Issue: 2

Print publication date: 09/02/2011

Date deposited: 13/08/2014

ISSN (electronic): 1932-6203

Publisher: Public Library of Science

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0016568

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0016568

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