Verbal suggestion can also play a big role in misdirection. In a recent study, Wiseman looked at how the classic metal-bending tricks, employed by magicians the world over and perhaps made most famous by Uri Geller, used verbal cues. In his experiment, he showed a group of students a video of a trick where a magician bends a key, apparently using his psychokinetic ability (in fact, the bending was done by sleight of hand). The magician then placed the key on a table and the video ended with a static shot of the bent key, which did not bend any further. But a voiceover from the magician at this stage suggested that the key was indeed continuing to bend.
The results, published this year in the British Journal of Psychology, showed that 40% of people claimed to see the key continuing to bend during the static shot at the end of the video. In the control group, where there was no voiceover from the magician, only 5% reported that they saw the key continuing to bend.
This is relevant to the Uri Geller post: