Is it possible to miss changes in objects that one directly looks at? Contrary to Lamont and Henderson's evaluation, the literature indicates that observers often look but do not see. Lamont and Henderson kindly note that our Perspective is more focused than previous efforts we further believe that it brings forth a significant shift in focus. Indeed, the neuroscientific study of magic has already proved more productive (with just a handful of studies over the past few years) than previous attempts at psychological magic theory. Thus, interest in the psychology of magic has waxed and waned, but interest in the neuroscience of magic is novel (see also Refs 9, 10). Lamont and Henderson agree with our evaluation of Kuhn and Tatler's paper 8 as “.the first study to have correlated the perception of magic with any physiological measurement” (Ref. Further, the only 'physiological' study mentioned did not address the physiological bases of the perception of magic: it simply sought to find out whether magicians had superior perceptual and motor skills to those of control subjects (not surprisingly, they did not) 7.

One should also note that a significant fraction of the psychological literature cited by Lamont and Henderson is comprised of editorials and opinion pieces (such as Refs 5, 6) rather than experimental work.

To the best of our knowledge, our recent Perspective represents the first effort to systematize the study of magic from a neuroscientific, rather than a psychological, perspective.

Study of magical words