A psychologically based taxonomy of Magicians’ forcing Techniques: How magicians influence our choices, and how to use this to study psychological mechanisms

Magicians have developed a wide range of techniques to influence and control spectators’ choices of such things as card, word, or number. These techniques are what is called forcing. The present paper develops a psychologically-based taxonomy of forcing techniques with two goals in mind. Firstly, it should help uncover the different psychological mechanisms that underlie forcing techniques. Secondly, it should facilitate knowledge transfer between magicians and psychologists. The main division present two basic categories that can be used as a way of focussing separately on (1) decision-making processes and external influences on choices, and (2) links between sense of agency over action and outcome as well as the illusion of control over this outcome. This taxonomy allows us to clearly differentiate between forces in which there is or is not a free choice, and whether this choice has an impact on the following events.