Exploiting failures in metacognition through magic: Visual awareness as a source of visual metacognition bias

• Main Authors: Barnhart, A. (Author), Kuhn, G. (Author), Montañes, P. (Author), Ortega, J. (Author)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Academic Press Inc. 2018
• Subjects: adult; Adult; Article; awareness; Awareness; change blindness; cognitive bias; Cognitive illusions; controlled study; decision making; Eye Movement Measurements; Eye movements; eye tracking; female; Female; human; human experiment; Humans; illusion; Illusions; inattentional blindness; magic; male; Male; metacognition; Metacognition; metacognitive awareness; Metacognitive biases; normal human; oculography; perception; peripheral vision; physiology; psychophysiology; questionnaire; Social Perception; videorecording; Visual awareness; visual illusion; Visual metacognition; visual stimulation; young adult; Young Adult
• Online Access: View Fulltext in Publisher

 We used cognitive illusions/magic tricks to study the role of visual awareness as a source of biases in visual metacognitive judgments. We conducted a questionnaire-based study (n = 144) and an eye tracking study (n = 69) in which participants watched videos of four different magic tricks that capitalize on failures of visual awareness (inattentional blindness and change blindness). We measured participants’ susceptibility to these illusions, their beliefs about other people's susceptibility, as well as the role that fixating (i.e. eye position) the critical event has on detecting the secret. Participants who detected the method of the tricks believed it was more likely that other people would detect it compared to those participants who failed to notice the method. Moreover, they believed that they moved their eyes to look at it. Eye tracking data show that, contrary to participants’ beliefs, peripheral vision played a significant role in detecting the method. Overall, the findings from these studies suggest that visual awareness may bias visual metacognitive judgments. © 2018 Elsevier Inc.