Unlike sleights of hand, which fool the senses, sleights of mind challenge cognition. This book defines and explains cognitive deception and explores six prominent potential historical instances of it: the Cross of King Arthur, Drake's Plate of Brass, the Kensington Runestone, the Vinland Map, the Piltdown Man, and the Shroud of Turin. In spite of evidence contradicting their alleged origins, their stories continue to persuade many of their authenticity. Peter Hancock uses these purported hoaxes as case studies to develop and demonstrate fundamental principles of cognitive psychology. By dissecting each ostensible artifact, he illustrates how hoaxes can deceive us and offers us defenses against them. This book further examines how and why we allow others to deceive us and how and why we even deceive ourselves at times. Accessible to beginner and expert alike, Hoax Springs Eternal provides an essential interdisciplinary guide to cognitive deception.

1. The tangled web; 2. Case one: the Cross of King Arthur; 3. Case two: Drake's Plate of Brass; 4. The psychology of deception; 5. Case three: the Kensington Runestone; 6. Case four: the Vinland Map; 7. Deciding on deception; 8. Case five: the Piltdown Man; 9. Case six: the Shroud of Turin; 10. Deception redux; 11. Summary: hoax springs eternal.

Peter Hancock is Provost Distinguished Research Professor, Pegasus Professor, and Trustee Chair in the Department of Psychology and the Institute for Simulation and Training at the University of Central Florida. He also directs the MIT2 Laboratory, which researches human factors psychology. He is the author or editor of twenty books, including Performance under Stress (2008); Mind, Machine and Morality (2009); and the award-winning historical text Richard III and the Murder in the Tower (2009).