I have just launched a new experiment on magic – if you have 2 minutes it would be great if you could take part. Details here.
I am a big fan of the The Flying Karamazov Brothers, and so thought it would be great to make a fun psychology with them. We had about 2 hours to rehearse and film, and this is what we created…..
If you know about these types of videos then I suspect it may not fool you but hope that you enjoy the idea and wonderful juggling. If you are in or near London in the next few months, catch their great show!
Richard Wiseman 
On any other website you would see that coming. I was watching for the horrible to walk past.
Speelcheck sux.
Would not see it coming.
And
Waiting for a gorilla.
Yes. They were rather obvious I thought.
the problem is they don’t pass the redclub nearly often enough. you figure out straight away how long you have before it gets passed so you get bored and watch the other parts.
doesn’t help that it says “psychological test” and most people have seen the gorilla video
My thoughts really. The gorilla video didn’t just work because it was new (at least to the internet at large), but because you were kept very busy doing the actual task at hand; in this video the passing only happens a handful of times and it’s easy to look away, especially as it gets passed back and forth in the same pattern!
Missed one : (
It was very obvious I thought.
I think Nina hit on the reason; the gorilla video and versions of it have been seen by so many people now that the reveal isn’t a shock anymore. As soon as I see a video that tells you to ‘pay attention/count one thing’ while a lot of action is happening it instantly makes me try to be aware of everything that is happening in the video not just the thing I have been asked to concentrate on.
My thought was “Why are these men wearing skirts?” Now, while it’s not WRONG for men to wear skirts it is UNUSUAL so my attention was drawn to their lower-half clothing right from the start. If they’d changed their shoes, for example, without their shoes being made special at the start then perhaps the swap would have been less obvious maybe.
As you say, a less obvious costume change (e.g. changing their kilts or waistcoats to a different style / length / colour – either of which could have been done in a few seconds with an off-screen helper) would probably have been more effective.
I purposely didn’t concentrate too hard on the red club – instead watching what was going on elsewhere, i.e. the jugglers on the right periodically dropping out then returning wearing a tutu.
In the first segment I was half-expecting something unusual to turn up (e.g. a gorilla), during the second segment I was half-expecting one of the jugglers to walk off with the red club or introduce another colour.
The readership may be especially alert because Dan Simon, who created the original invisible-gorilla-amidst-basketball-passers, recently hosted a charity fund raiser.
I missed a pass. But did you all see the gorilla?
Ach, I watched this at work with the sound off and didn’t realize I was supposed to be counting the passes of the red club in the first place, so I noticed all of the tutu changes immediately.
Well that reply was supposed to be me, but gravatar messed it up. Anyway.
Yeah this was pretty bad. Agreed, more passes need to be made. Also the bright skirts were incredibly obvious.
I actually counted 10 passes of the red one because I also counted when it was passed to a new person, not just across the stage. I also noticed the tutu’s.
Agree it was bad. With three of them standing in a line on the right, I had to really focus there to see which of them actually had the red club — so many arms moving at once. So it was really obvious when somebody moved offscreen, and when one of them had a different uniform than the others.
I like The Red Club.
I counted 10 passes (I think I was fooled by people changing places on the right while not passing) and yes I noticed the tutus appear. But then I knew about the basketball/gorilla thing, so I was more than half expecting something of the sort. Fun though.
It was too obvious. I noticed something wrong the instant one person moved off the screen. Also the tutus covered a lot more area on the screen, so the difference to the previous outfit was very easy to spot.
There should be a video for all those who know “the gorilla” already. If there had been actually a gorilla in this video, no one would’ve seen the tutus appearing! Sorry for the bad english.
Foreknowledge of the type of trick this was going to be made it easy to spot the changes, though I did find myself wondering about the yellow handle which kept appearing and disappearing, which I now believe was just a yellow spot shining down on the far right of frame and not intended to be part of the illusion.
Another one that counted 10 passes between people (8 across the stage) and the tutus were blindingly obvious. Easy to notice that one person moved out and then came back wearing an enormous tutu. It wasn’t a subtle change like a change of colour of kilt/waistcoat would have been.
Yes, I noticed the tutus as they arrived in view. Also counted the 8 passes of the red club. Sorry! 😉
I was waiting for the gorilla…. sorry.
I think I’m the only one who didn’t notice the tutu change, until the end of course as I was really concentrating on the number of passes on the left side of the screen and not the right.
I counted 8 passes, I didn’t notice the tutus, I haven’t seen the gorilla video.
The first 10-15 comments after any blog on this site always seem to be from world-weary nerds who are almost visibly yawning at the tiresome lack of complexity of it all. I counted the passes. I didn’t spot the tutus. It amused me. Surely that’s the point ?
I counted 10 passes and i didnt notice the tutus but i did wonder why they kept dissapearing off stage lol
I counted 7. Maybe I missed the eighth because I was concentrating too hard on the tutus…
I was very happy to discover this page. I wanted to thank you for your time due to this wonderful read!! I definitely loved every part of it and I have you book-marked to check out new information in your site.