Among the many important empirical and theoretical contributions in her career Clayton and her colleagues advanced the idea that comparative cognition researchers would benefit from considering the role of magic and the techniques of the magician in some areas of cross-species cognitive study. They provided compelling and exciting studies using the techniques of the magician and demonstrated how those affect nonhuman animals that rely on vision, showing that there are similarities and dissimilarities in how susceptible some nonhuman species are to the magician's effects that typically work so well on human observers.