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Unveiling the Magic of Our Minds
I’m Alice Pailhès — a psychological scientist, speaker, and author exploring the hidden forces that shape our choices, beliefs, and behaviors.
By blending the rigor of psychology with the art of illusion, I reveal what our minds often conceal from us and how understanding those blindspots can unlock clarity, change, and awe.
I’m one of the few researchers in the world to specialize in the psychology of magic — a field that uses magic as a lens to explore how we perceive, decide, remember, believe, and make sense of the world around us.
Through bespoke keynotes, transformative workshops, and my WonderLab, I make complex science experiential. I help audiences and organizations spot their cognitive biases, understand the illusion of free will, and learn how perception can be shaped, shifted, and sometimes deceived.
Whether I’m on stage, on screen, or in the lab, my mission is simple:
To unveil the magic of our minds and inspire people to see the world (and themselves) differently.
TED talk: What magic tricks can reveal about free will
Biography
My research has pioneered the scientific study of magicians' mind control tricks (forcing techniques) — the subtle ways magicians influence people’s choices without them realizing it — and has expanded to explore how belief, perception, memory, and meaning are constructed and manipulated.
My work has been published in top-tier journals including PNAS, JEP: General, and Trends in Cognitive Sciences, and featured in TED, The Financial Times, BBC One, and the Wellcome Collection.
I co-authored The Psychology of Magic with Dr. Gustav Kuhn, making cutting-edge research accessible to the magic community.
I’m currently writing my first trade book, Everyday Magic (MIT Press, 2026), which brings the psychology of magic to a broad audience, and launching WonderLab, an interactive studio for public experiments that explore the hidden levers of human behavior.
I am also a committee member of SoMA - the Science of Magic Association - an interdisciplinary organization that promotes rigorous research directed toward understanding the nature, function and underlying mechanisms of magic.
I am a regular keynote speaker on the topic of the psychology of magic, decision-making, illusory freedom over choice and the quirks of our mind.
Whether I’m designing experiments, crafting immersive workshops, or collaborating with creatives and media, I’m driven by one question: How can we use science to better understand — and re-enchant — the human mind?
What's Next?
I'm currently writing my first trade book, The Art of Being Fooled (working title, MIT Press), which explores how the psychological principles behind magic tricks can help us understand and reshape our everyday thoughts, behaviors, and beliefs. The book is scheduled for release in 2026.
Alongside the book, I’m launching Alice's WonderLab — an interactive space on this site where you can participate in live psychological experiments, contribute to real research, and see what your mind might be hiding from you.
I’m thrilled to announce that I’ll be speaking at New Scientist Live 2025 in London – the world’s greatest festival of ideas and discoveries!
I’ll be giving two talks: one for the general public and one for Schools’ Day, diving into the fascinating psychology behind the illusion of free will and how our decisions can be subtly influenced without us even realizing it. Expect mentalism, mind-bending experiments, and surprising insights from the science of magic.
