Résumé :
Past research demonstrates that unconscious primes can affectpeople’s decisions. However, these free choice priming paradigmspresent participants with very few alternatives. Magicians’forcingtechniques provide a powerful tool to investigate how naturalimplicit primes can unconsciously influence decisions with multiplealternatives. We used video and live performances of the mentalpriming force. This technique uses subtle nonverbal and verbalconversational primes to influence spectators to choose the threeof diamonds. Our results show that a large number of participantschose the target card while reporting feeling free and in control oftheir choice. Even when they were influenced by the primes, par-ticipants typically failed to give the reason for their choice. Theseresults show that naturally embedding primes within a person’sspeech and gestures effectively influenced people’s decision mak-ing. This raises the possibility that this form of mind control couldbe used to effectively manipulate other mental processes.

DOI  : 10.1073/pnas.2000682117