I'm trying to think of the name of this experiment or at least where I saw it.

I think it was on a derren brown show.

He put a group of people in a room with a piece of paper that said something like "when the counter gets to 100 the door will be unlocked. Your aim is to leave the room as quickly as possible."

There were objects in the room of different colours and shapes and the people began noticing that if they did certain things the digital display above the door got closer to 100 so they tried finding what the secret was and ended up jumping on one leg while patting their head and holding a yellow item in their left hand. Etc...

They tried for 2 hours but failed to leave.

However, there was another sign in the room that said "the door is already unlocked".

They were all trying to associate their actions with the random number changes on the display that they had all missed this sign and could have left at any time.

It's not it I think. but it sounds a bit like a variation of a Skinner box. There's also an experiment with chimps I think, where they were dispensed food at irregular intervals and they were shown to exhibit 'superstitious' behaviours which they had apparently deduced would cause food to be vended, even though in fact nothing they could do would influence how long it took the next food item to arrive. It's an experiment that shows that higher level mammals have at least some long term memory, because they associate actions in the past with results in the past to influence current behaviour.

So none of the people in the room actually tried the door?
Idiots.

Mark

Everyone on Derren Brown and Dynamo is acting.

I've solved it for you.

Pretty much any show that does “illusions” tightly controls your viewing angle and uses actors. Very few people on screen are being manipulated - but you, the viewer, is. The whole “have we met before?” ”no” exchange is total bull.

That all said, I like watching magic shows and illusions for the same reason I love a good special effects sequence in a film (especially if it’s not CGI), simply because I like to know how it’s done and half the fun is trying to work it out.