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New Study Finds People Remember More Than They Think
An anonymous reader writes "A new study has shown that people subconsciously retain information about things they've seen even if they can't consciously remember. From the article: 'Luis Martinez of CSIC- Miguel Hernandez University in Spain and his team "read minds" with the Princess Card Trick, an act invented by magician Henry Hardin in 1905. Participants in the study mentally picked out a playing card from a group of six cards, which then disappeared. When a second group of cards appeared, the researchers had amazingly figured out which card a person had in mind and removed it. Very few people caught the trick: All of the cards in the second set were different, not just the card that people had chosen. This trick is well-known to confuse the masses, even via the Internet a magician's sleight of hand can make it seem as though he/she legitimately "read your mind" A few moments after viewing the two panels of cards, volunteers were asked which of two new cards was present in the first set of cards. None of the volunteers could actually recall which card was present. Despite claiming that they had no idea, when they were forced to choose, people got the right answer around 80 percent of the time. “People say they don’t know, but they do,” Martinez said. “The information is still there, and we can use it unconsciously if we are forced to.”'"
Ok, found it. Neurons operate at 200 Hz, not 10. That gives a brain speed of 24 THz.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Can someone please explain the trick to me? Is he picking the right card, or a card that looks like the right card? I mean, if you showed me six cards and I pick one and then you show me a different six cards, I'm going to remember what my card looked like, unless all twelve cards are very similar.
The trick is that the magician, without ever knowing which card you picked, seems to have "magically" taken it out and replaced it with a different card. It relies on the fact that you won't remember the 5 cards you didn't pick, or else you'd notice that all of them were replaced.
However, the point of this study was determining whether you unconsciously did remember which cards were in the first set, even though you could only consciously remember the one you had chosen.