Do autistic audience members see through a magician’s sleight of hand more than others? That is what a new study is suggesting as covered by ABC News yesterday.
But at least two magicians fired back on their Twitter accounts, casting doubt on the findings. Apollo Robbins, who is quoted in the ABC article, had the following comment.
They say autistic subjects often see through magic, but their example has a false solution. They need a magic-proofer
Meanwhile, David Blaine confederate Doug Mackenzie took a harsher tone.
By sentence 3, you know the article is BS …
For the record, here are the first three sentences of the article:
The magician placed a coin atop an airtight rubber seal on a cup and — abracadabra — the shiny piece fell to the bottom of the cup.
But he didn’t fool 8-year-old Stephen Shore, who was the only one among his fellow Boy Scouts who saw through the magic trick.
“People didn’t see the slit in the piece of rubber,” said Shore, now 48 and an assistant professor of special education teacher at New York’s Adelphi University. “I went up and just kind of pushed my finger into the slit.”
What do you folks think?