Magicians are intuitive psychologists, reverse-engineering the mind and preying on all its weak spots. They build illusions out of our frailties, hiding rabbits in our attentional blind spots and distracting the eyes with hand waves and wands. And while people in the audience might be aware of their perceptual shortcomings – those fingers move so fast! – they are often blind to a crucial cognitive limitation, which allows magicians to keep us from deciphering the trick. In short, magicians know that people tend to to fixate on particular answers (the egg is in the armpit), and thus ignore alternative ones (it’s a trick bag), even when the alternatives are easier to execute.

When it comes to problem-solving, this phenomenon is known as the einstellung effect. (Einstellung is German for “setting” or “attitude.”) First identified by the psychologist Abraham Luchins in the early 1940s, the effect has since been replicated in numerous domains. Consider a study that gave chess experts a series of difficult chess problems, each of which contained two solutions. The players were asked to find the shortest possible way to win. The first solution was obvious and took five moves to execute. The second solution was less familiar, but could be achieved in only three moves. As expected, these expert players found the first solution right away. Unfortunately, most of them then failed to identify the second one, even though it was more efficient. The good answer blinded them to the better one.

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