"Magicians do the sleight of hand right in front of a crowd of people, in plain sight, but nobody notices."
Could you define "in plain sight" in this context? Are card manipulations that are almost impossible to detect, even when known and watched for considered "in plain sight", just because they don't happen "out of frame" to use Teller's term. If so, it isn't "because you don't want to notice", it's because you can't see them even if you're looking.
And what of the crafty moves that do happen in plain sight, but are genuinely missed due to misdirection (selective attention) [1]. This isn't because you don't want to notice either. (Amusingly, at first glance I missed the hand dipping in Tellers back pocket in the photo sequence accompanying the article, because I was concentrating on the cards in Teller's hand).
Suspension of disbelief relates to the enjoyment of the effect in the full knowledge that it is an illusion, not that you willfully ignore the mechanics of an illusion that are otherwise apparent (although this can be a fun manipulation of the audience when the mechanism is apparently unintentionally revealed allowing the audience to "catch the magician out" , but subsequently shown to be inconsequential to the effect, catching the audience out in return).
There are exceptions - Penn & Teller's cups and balls springs to mind - where the joy is in watching just how much more trouble "the secret [is] than the trick seems worth". [2]
For example, I'm specifically referring to things like in the rising card, having the person place the card in the "middle of the deck" and holding out the entire deck minus a single card. That's not out of frame at all. It's a reframing of the definition of the middle of the deck. It's in plain sight and depending on the size of the crowd, it's impossible to completely control all your angles.
Another example would be the double or triple lift where the magician lifts more than one card as though they are a single card. This always happens in frame. Everyone is looking at the cards. Even sloppy lifts, from a magician's standpoint, usually pass without detection, regardless of the speed of the lift. I've always figured this is because people focus their attention on the pattern on the back of the card and not the edges of the card.
Lastly, in pickpocketing tricks, the lifts always happen right in plain sight. For example, I may ask you step forward "so I can do card trick," lift your wallet, and with your wallet in my hand (in plain sight to anyone looking at my hand) reach into my own pocket for a deck of cards. I'll try to limit people noticing the wallet by gesturing to something with my other hand. I'll do a card trick or two and then move into the routine that involves your missing wallet. This is what I think Teller means by "out of frame."
The misdirection needs to be there, but if you watch, they happen several steps before a reveal. Savvy members of an audience might watch other parts of a magician's body, but they don't have the correct timing. They're thinking cause, then effect. Not cause, some random things in the middle, then effect.
Anyway, in that time between, people tend to wander in and out. In one moment they may be trying to figure out the trick, in the next, they're being amazed by the trick.
So, I guess to clarify: Once the illusion is completed, people have given up trying to figure it out. They allow themselves to suspend their disbelief in that moment.
What I was questioning was "nobody notices. Because they don't want to notice", as opposed to it having been obfuscated by "magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship" to coin a phrase, but from the examples you've given above, it sounds like we agree in principle.
In Derren Brown's excellent Tricks of the Mind[1], he mentions the lengths that audiences are willing to go. In one example, he says something about "this coin in my hand" while holding his hand up near his face for a moment, index finger and thumb spaced to the approximate distance of a coin, yet there's not actually a coin there, just empty space! Afterward, people will swear that there was a coin in his hand, going so far as to describe what sort of coin it was.
Could you define "in plain sight" in this context? Are card manipulations that are almost impossible to detect, even when known and watched for considered "in plain sight", just because they don't happen "out of frame" to use Teller's term. If so, it isn't "because you don't want to notice", it's because you can't see them even if you're looking.
And what of the crafty moves that do happen in plain sight, but are genuinely missed due to misdirection (selective attention) [1]. This isn't because you don't want to notice either. (Amusingly, at first glance I missed the hand dipping in Tellers back pocket in the photo sequence accompanying the article, because I was concentrating on the cards in Teller's hand).
Suspension of disbelief relates to the enjoyment of the effect in the full knowledge that it is an illusion, not that you willfully ignore the mechanics of an illusion that are otherwise apparent (although this can be a fun manipulation of the audience when the mechanism is apparently unintentionally revealed allowing the audience to "catch the magician out" , but subsequently shown to be inconsequential to the effect, catching the audience out in return).
There are exceptions - Penn & Teller's cups and balls springs to mind - where the joy is in watching just how much more trouble "the secret [is] than the trick seems worth". [2]
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSQJP40PcGI
[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrw3euF2cIg