Human problem solving: The state of the theory in 1970.

WHEN the magician pulls the rabbit from the hat, the spectator can respond either with mystification or with curiosity. He can enjoy the surprise and the wonder of the unexplained (and perhaps inexplicable), or he can search for an explanation. Suppose curiosity is his main response—that he adopts a scientists attitude toward the mystery. What questions should a scientific theory of magic answer? First, it should predict the performance of a magician handling specified tasks—producing a rabbit from a hat, say. It should explain how the production takes place, what processes are used, and what mechanisms perform those processes. It should predict the incidental phenomena that accompany the magic—the magicians patter and his pretty assistant—and the relation of these to the mystification process. It should show how changes in the attendant conditions—both changes inside the members of the audience and changes in the feat of magic—alter the magicians behavior. It should explain how specific and general magicians skills are learned, and what the magician has when he has learned them.