ABSTRACT

Flintknappers must successfully deploy specific physical techniques to make stone artifacts. Somewhat analogous to flintknapping, the successful performance of conjuring tricks also relies on effective deployment of physical actions and techniques to bring about desired outcomes. To prevent spectators detecting the cause–effect relationships between these physical actions, conjurors use various forms of “misdirection.” Recently, there has been intensified academic interest in misdirection by experimental psychologists and cognitive scientists. Here, we show that misdirection provides a valuable model for examining the cognitively challenging elements of learning to knap through observation. Several implications arise from conceiving of these issues in terms of their capacity for “misdirection.” This includes the possibility of connecting them with well-understood psychological mechanisms, especially those underpinning the cognition of accurate perception, attention, memory, and reasoning. This can open novel avenues of enquiry relating to social learning, the evolution of technological “complexity,” and for connecting archaeology with cognitive neuroscience.

摘要

Fl石者必须成功地部署特定的物理技术来制造石头制品。类似于打int，魔术技巧的成功执行还取决于对身体动作和技术的有效部署，以实现预期的效果。为了防止观众发现这些物理动作之间的因果关系，魔术师使用各种形式的“误导”。最近，实验心理学家和认知科学家对误导的学术兴趣日益浓厚。在这里，我们证明了误导提供了一种有价值的模型，可用于检验学习通过观察进行折断的认知挑战性要素。这些问题就其“误导”的能力而言，产生了一些含义。”这包括将它们与易于理解的心理机制联系起来的可能性，尤其是那些支持对准确感知，注意力，记忆和推理的认知的机制。这可以开辟与社会学习，技术“复杂性”的发展以及将考古学与认知神经科学联系起来的新颖的研究途径。