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hello everyone i'm today empty shoring up slightly older scientific finding the
night happened recently
uh... this one is about time
the unreliability of eyewitness testimony
i'm sure everyone knows what i witness testimony as its
one of the most powerful forms of evidence in court of law
and inherently it seems like something we can all trust something we can all
uh...
believe them
so to speak
uh... but that's actually uh...
although it seems intuitively correct is actually
not quite as accurate as one might
uh... and it's a great example of
assigns can sometimes
eggs to uh... area studies on things
we assume
are one way
resume our are correct letters i witness testimonies accurate
and why bother doing a study on that
and uh... true
the scientific method can cover that
actually
we may not or perhaps we should not be relying on eyewitness testimony quite as
strongly as we have in the past
now take a list rate that i'd like to uh... share a bit of a story heights a
case study actully
alone won't be using any of the names of the people involved for
scientific ethical
purposes as well as legal ones
uh...
is stuck place a few years ago uh... it involved uh... woman living and uh...
the city
ashu sitting at home in her apartment i watching television
ordinary scene
uh... suddenly a man uh...
broke into our apartment and sexually assaulted her
uh... cv
escaped ran off and she was very quick to call the police
uh... she offered a description
uh... please
watch the tape went to see a rat in computer
several times and i got uh... oh profile
they got ur top story over and over
and uh... they got out
visual description of the guy
so
what happened was a few hours later they actually picked about someone matching
his the description up
brought them to the police station and this is all within a twenty four-hour
period
brought the woman to the police station and she was able to positively i_d_ them
and ask for attacker
quite certain that this was met with salzburg
less than twenty four hours ago
now the problem was this manhattan airtight alibi
uh... during the time when she was attacked
this man was actually filming a television show
uh... and it was a live broadcast
cures work its will a complicated
the reason she thought she saw him as her attacker was because
she was actually on the television
when she was attacked
so
in her memory she
mistook correct hacker space for the face she had been watching on television
now this is uh...
are very uh...
deliberate sample of how
our memories are incredibly malleable specifically when their first forum
uh... we tend to have a very
week impressions of things that happened to us when our attention is not directed
upon them
now in that last or you may have noticed i mentioned the woman was
uh... repeatedly interviewed
and each time she was interviewed should be give a description of her attacker
repeatedly
now that its description is started as
regading uncertain
but as she recalls that over and over
constantly prompted
for the same details
uh...
that memory which was once very
easy an uncertain becomes
more and more
solidified
and that's basically how memories work
when their first in particular incorporating their very
i mean when you experience something it technically becomes a memory
but if you don't prefer try to work a little remember it'll just be that way
for instance what you have which went for breakfast three weeks ago
i'm sure you'll remember that
uh... because you have even thought about it since then
if you were to think of it over and over and over again
that memory becomes stronger and we
would be imprinted in your brain
much more
consistently
and uh...
it would be more uh... kermit
why was the memory changed blow
that's because whenever memories for call
it suddenly enters this weird space are ruby comes
malleable again it can be subject to change
so it's sort of uh... double-edged sword i mean
leader
forget it and it's gone forever or you'll remember it and risk the chance
of having it be altered
and uh... this is true for all memories uh...
the example edges
cited a little earlier that woman was the victim of uh... of a crime not
necessarily what spell
she was a witness to room crying but
obviously being the victim there was smother
elements in play
but uh...
key element that would be the same for an eye witnesses attention
uh... no one expects crime happened
your you don't walk down the street expecting to be blocked work you do
must be exhausted
constantly looking over your shoulder
uh...
but the key to properly identifying
small descriptions required to make a positive i_d_
in a crime requires you to pay attention and that is to have your attention ready
for instance if you see someone walking on the string of hit by a car and hit
and run in the car just takes part
you'll be very hard-pressed tony
the maker of the car
uh... what year
uh...
or even what's uh...
what company made it
i never mind the model
uh... and then the driver inside the car oval it's it just gets harder and harder
um...
nonetheless one
i witness is our interviewed
they are interviewed multiple times
and bought me start as an uncertain
um...
an uncertain memory that's
they're not terribly confident and will increase
incompetence
but it won't increase inaccuracy uh... that's been a cynical memories we can be
increased
credibly confident
but that has perhaps let me know relationship without accurate our
memories actually are
this evidence is
preety
pretty fair
i mean there's a lot of studies that
reinforce this and show that witnesses are incredibly unreliable and
never mind the facts that uh... police officers can sometimes uh... steer
witnesses into
with leading questions on lawyers can get involved in muddy the waters and
further
and often trials take place in years after the fact when the memories are
have been recalled so many times talking to the media family members and friends
that big could it be they can be completely different
what do you have
what actually happened
and they're incredibly unreliable but nonetheless
we still use them in our justice system and um...
i don't have a very good answer for that uh... they could just be that
resettle strongly
believe an eyewitness testimony avi intuitively believed in acts strong that
it would be too difficult
or is too difficult to remove its importance from the justice system
consulate lawyers summit changed their tactics
uh... affect the way law enforcement as the decision to be a huge change
but nonetheless it would be a change for the better
it would be one that uh... oh
ratchet reflects reality and considering in many of these cases someone's life
can literally be on the line
i think it's important to look at the scientific evidence ander is quite a bit
of it connects
case and
perhaps it's time we restrain
uh... importance we place on i witnessed testing
thank you so much for watching and uh...
ourselves