A pair of psychologists at Goldsmiths, University of London has found that embedding primes in a person's speech and gestures can influence people's decision-making. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Alice Pailhès and Gustav Kuhn describe experiments they conducted with volunteers and primes and what they learned from them.

In both psychology and magic circles, primes are known as actions or words that unconsciously influence the thinking of another person One example is a policeman interrogating a witness tapping his ring while inquiring about jewelry a suspect might have been wearing. It is a technique magicians have used for years. They prime a person or audience by giving them subtle verbal or physical clues to get them to choose a number during a guessing trick, or a card during a card trick. In this new effort, the researchers tested the practice to see if it actually works. Read More