Apollo Robbins steals a man's watch in front of an audience.
It's weird to know that there are people out there who can fool the rest of us completely, manipulating natural human tendencies in order to dupe and deceive. We call these people con artists or crooks—except when they do it for entertainment and we're in on the ploy, in which case we call them sleight of hand artists or magicians.
In many ways, the latter takes more skill. Fooling someone who isn't expecting it is easy compared to fooling someone who knows you're trying to trick them. Masters of the craft are able to trick the average person even as the person watches carefully for signs of trickery, and they do it through the art of misdirection.
Magic tricks often use misdirection.Photo credit: Canva
Apollo Robbins is one of the world's leading experts on pickpockets, confidence crimes, and deception (being skilled at all of the above himself) and his TED Talk demonstrates exactly how he uses misdirection to dupe not only the man he brings onstage, but the entire audience as well at the same time.
Robbins starts his Talk by asking if the audience thinks it's possible to control someone's attention and predict human behavior. It would be a superpower, wouldn't it? Then he walks audience members through a series of tasks to illustrate how we don't fully use our powers of observation at all times. For instance, he asks everyone to recall what icon they have on the bottom right of their phones and then check to see if they're right. After putting the phones away, he then asks what time was on the screen they just looked at. Most people didn't take note of that because it wasn't where their attention was.
- YouTubewww.youtube.com
Then he points out that they've all been looking at him for a couple of minutes, so he asks them the close their eyes and recall what he's wearing. "What color is my shirt? What color is my tie?" he asks. These are all tasks meant to illustrate how many things we don't consciously notice or perceive that are right in front of us.
Robbins begins to explain how our brains work and how he is able to manipulate our attention as a limited resource, but then says it's easier just to demonstrate how he does it. He brings a man from the crowd on stage and proceeds to do a series of sleight-of-hand tricks with a poker chip while simultaneously stealing the man's watch and putting it on his own wrist.
But then, at the end of the demonstration, he asks the audience once again what he's wearing. And that's the real mic drop. Woah. (Watch the above video if you haven't yet—spoilers below.)
People were wowed by how fooled they were.
Apollo Robbins is an experienced pickpocket.Photo credit: Canva
"So he made it seem like the volunteer was being distracted and we as the audience were watching him be distracted while the magician obviously showed off stealing the volunteer's items, but in actuality we as the audience were being distracted while the magician did a quick change act. Wonderful way to prove the concept!"
"It’s especially great when things like this work on both and audience and the people watching the video."
"'Don’t have to close your eyes this time. What am I wearing' Me:.... It’s rewind time."
"This was mind-boggling, had to replay several times just to understand what was going on. Amazing live performance!"
Sleight of hand tricks often use misdirection.Giphy GIF by Digg
"It's fascinating, that even though you know he is somehow going to 'trick' you, you just can't get over it."
"What he said at the end has stuck with me - 'If you could control someone's attention, what would you do with it?'"
That's the million dollar question, isn't it? If someone can control people's attention for nefarious purposes, can we do something similar for good? Either way, being aware of how our minds work and how our behavior can be manipulated is important to know, and Robbins' TED Talk perfectly demonstrates that.
