A Humboldt's squirrel monkey is fooled by the "French Drop" magic trick. Credit: E. Garcia-Pelegrin et al., 2023 The key to a successful sleight-of-hand magic trick is how well a magician ...

Sleight-of-hand magic trick only fools monkeys with opposable thumbs. ScienceDaily. Retrieved June 2, 2025 from www.sciencedaily.com / releases / 2023 / 04 / 230404114216.htm.

A sleight-of-hand magic trick which often catches humans out only fools monkeys with opposable thumbs – a trait shared with humans, new research suggests.

Monkeys without opposable thumbs aren’t fooled by magic tricks, study finds By attempting sleight-of-hand magic tricks on monkeys, scientists learned some interesting things about cognition ...

Sleight-of-hand magic trick only fools monkeys with opposable thumbs – study. University of Cambridge. Journal Current Biology DOI 10.1016/j.cub.2023.03.023. Keywords ...

Monkeys with hands that resemble ours fall for a sleight-of-hand magic trick, but those without opposable thumbs aren’t fooled. These differences illustrate how primates’ expectations of the ...

Sleight-of-hand tricks exploit specific aspects of human perception and cognition. By trying those same tricks on other animals, scientists can learn something about how their minds differ from ours.

The magic tricks came in handy while training Aubrey, with the puppy relaxing whenever Perez performed a sleight-of-hand. "She loves them now. She brings him her toys just so he can do his magic ...