A team led by former magician Gustav Kuhn at the University of Plymouth sorted stage magic not by what experts think, but by how ordinary people experience it. About 300 participants compared 47 classic effects, such as a vanishing coin, and rated how alike each pair felt. Spektrum der Wissenschaft reports in German that a cluster analysis produced 13 categories: ten kinds of object magic, where something seems to break the laws of physics, and three kinds of mentalism, such as mind reading.

The study used written descriptions, so it still needs testing with live audiences. Its aim is to map the intuitive rules people hold about mind and matter. Knowing which intuitions a trick exploits also helps to see how psychics and miracle claims fool us.

Source: Christiane Gelitz, Spektrum der Wissenschaft (German) (2026-11-11)
https://www.spektrum.de/news/illusionen-magie-offenbart-13-formen-von-unmoeglichkeit/2353535

Summarised by the FTI newsdesk.