Brain Games- Eyewitness Inaccuracy, Source Monitoring Error, and Misinformation Effect

- Black and a black and
one red card, right there.

You show me 20, you get 100, right here.

Show me 20, get 100, go on, turn it over.

Holy, What happened?

Ya gotta watch the card, I'm tellin' ya,

you gotta watch it, so simple.

- [Narrator] Something
shocking is about to happen

in this New York City park.

Pay close attention and
take note of the details.

- [Street Performer] Oh, oh my goodness!

No, you got it wrong!

- You will be tested.

- With all the money.

You see, there it is.

There it isn't, which one is it?

Go ahead, point to it.

This one right here?

Look, look, which one did you say?

This one, sir, you showed where the money,

your's the winner.

You see that's the way

you gotta pay attention, all you gotta--

(yelling in foreign language)

- What, I can't, I don't understand you!

(yelling in foreign language)

- What are you saying, I can't

I don't understand what you're saying!

Hey, hey!

Hey, hey!
- Yo, yo, yo!

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] You and 20
unsuspecting bystanders

just witnessed a crime.

- [Man] Hey, hey!

- [Narrator] And now, you're
part of the investigation.

An interactive experience, in which you,

the viewer, can play along.

Can you help collar a criminal,

or will your memory let you down.

- The lady, follow that pretty
lady with all the money.

You see there it is, there it isn't.

- [Narrator] Before we test
your memory, we're going to let

you see the crime one more time.

(yelling in foreign language)

- What what, I can't,
I don't understand you!

What are you saying, I can't!

I don't understand what you're saying!

Hey, hey get back!

Hey!

- [Narrator] Now, take
a moment to think about

what you just saw.

- [Man] Hey hey!

Hey, hey!

- [Narrator] What just happened?

Stop us when we say
something that's false.

A woman was yelling.

A man ran from the scene.

A woman was robbed.

Did you say stop?

You're right, that last
statement wasn't true.

But if you're not sure about the details,

don't worry, you're not alone.

- [Greg] The most
surprising thing I learned

about memory, is that you have
to know that it is faulty.

Almost everybody thinks they have

the best memories and it's not true.

- [Narrator] Meet retired
NYPD detective Greg Walsh.

For over 25 years, he's had to rely

on people's memories to solve crimes.

- Memory starts to fade right away,

that's why you have to get

and interview your witnesses immediately.

It's up to the detective to
find out who is the best.

Can you describe to me what you saw?

- A woman just came out of nowhere yelling

at this guy in Russian?
- Spanish.

- Definitely Eastern or Central European

- You have 20 witnesses,

you're gonna get 20 different stories.

- They knew each other.

- I don't think he knew her.

- She was Asian.
- Caucasian.

- Middle Eastern.
- Mediterranean.

- When you're interviewing
witness there's a,

take like a potato.

A potato, that's the person's memory.

But when you take that potato
and you put it in the stew,

and you're makin stew and
you're putting vegetables

and all sorts of things, well,

now the reliability is not as good.

- Then this little kid
zipped by, a little boy.

- [Narrator] As you listen
to these actual witnesses,

see how your memory of
the crime matches theirs.

- He was mugging her.

- There's gonna be a thread of truth

running through all the 20 witnesses

and you're gonna
concentrate on that thread.

- Long black hair.

- Long hair.

- Black hair.

- A good witness is someone
who's measured in their thoughts

Doesn't give an answer too
quickly, is not too excited.

- Seemed to start out with a
woman and a gentleman arguing,

few seconds later,
another gentleman came up

and ran up behind him.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] Now, back to
you, are you a good witness?

Let's put your memory to the test.

Do you remember how many
people, including the victim,

were involved in our crime?

What do you think?

Two, three, four?

How does your memory compare
to the other eye witnesses?

- It's just three people

- One girl, one guy.

- [Greg] One girl, one guy.

- Not only were the two men involved,

but she was probably
also involved as well.

- [Narrator] The correct answer is four.

But if you didn't get
all that, don't feel bad.

Okay, now that you're a pro with names,

let's return to the scene of
the crime we witnessed earlier

to test your memory on
something more serious.

Retired NYPD detective, Greg Walsh,

has picked up five suspects.

One of them was involved
in the park robbery.

Can you identify which one?

Take your time, your
testimony is very important.

(dramatic music)

- Eye witness testimony is
considered by juries, still,

and most people to be the
most reliable information.

When you go into a line up, you say,

do you recognize anybody?

You don't say do you see the
person who committed the crime,

you say, no, do you recognize somebody?

Very important that you use
this verbiage all the time.

Where do you recognize that person from?

- [Narrator] Which suspects
do our witnesses recognize?

- Maybe five would be the closest,

that he could've been the one.

- If I had to say anybody I'd
say it would be number five.

- Five
- Take your time, alright now

five, you say that it's number five.

Where did you see five from?

- I seen him during the crime, when he

reached into a old guy's bag and took

something outta his bag and ran off.

- [Greg] And how sure are
your of this identification?

- 65%.

He looked like the criminal that ran away.

He just, looked familiar,
like he was there.

- Number five, he has similar hair.

- Uh huh, alright,

Is there anybody there that you recognize?

- I think number four.

- I think number five.

- Number five?

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] Of these eight witnesses,

six believe suspect
number five is the thief.

Do you agree?

Is this the man you would send to jail?

(yelling in foreign language)

- I don't understand what you're saying!

Hey, hey!

- [Narrator] Earlier,
you and 20 spectators

witnessed a crime.

One of these five men was the thief.

Do you recognize which one?

The actual perp, is suspect number three.

If you chose suspect number
five, like the other witnesses,

you do have great recall for faces.

This man was, indeed, in the
crowd at the crime scene.

But you almost sent the wrong guy to jail.

Due to a trick of the mind
called unconscious transference.

- Number five was
standing around the scene,

around the Three-Card Monty dealer,

so his presence is there.

So though they might not
recognize where they saw him from,

they recognize him,

therefore that must be the
person who committed the crime.

They, in fact, might
even create a new memory

when they see the person
and move that person

as the person who committed the crime,

and now they will firmly
believe that that is the person.

- [Man] If you're ever watching
see, there's a little--

- [Narrator] Okay, ready to
put your brain to another test?

Now that some time has
passed, close your eyes,

and think back to the crime we showed you

earlier in the park.

- [Man] I don't speak your--

(yelling in foreign language)

- [Narrator] Watch the
action play out in your mind.

- [Man] Hey, hey!

- [Narrator] What details
are you sure are real?

Got 'em?
- Hey, hey, hey!

- [Elizabeth] You don't really need a PhD

to know that as time passes memory fades,

but what is less well known is
that as the memory is fading,

it becomes more and more vulnerable.

- [Narrator] Dr. Elizabeth
Loftus studies memory

and the various ways
it can be manipulated.

It may not matter if you can't remember

what you had for dinner last night,

but what if a jury was relying

on your eye witness testimony.

- We know from an analysis
of hundreds of cases

of wrongful conviction
where people have spent

years and years in prison
for crimes they didn't do,

that the major cause of
those wrongful convictions

is faulty human memory.

Somebody can have a false
memory or a distorted memory

and be confident, detailed and emotional

about something that's wrong.

(upbeat music)

- [Narrator] Get ready
to test the reliability

of your and our eyewitness' memories.

You're here in a Brooklyn
court room for testimony.

Pay close attention to
what you're about to hear,

because everything you
thought you knew might change.

- Hi everyone, I'm Elizabeth
and I'm just gonna be asking

you a few questions.

What do you remember?

- I remember a woman
screaming in some language,

I don't know what it was, maybe Italian?

- Somebody ran up and grabbed
something out of his bag,

ran off, and I remember the woman,

she was still standing there for a second.

I remember she had, like,
really long, dark hair,

she had on a red coat,
that's pretty much it.

- I was thinking to say I saw
a white blazer on this woman

- [Woman] See yeah, so did I.

- I definitely saw her in red,

cause she was the first thing that I saw.

- So you agree with
that, but you disagree.

- Yeah well when he said red,

that kind of triggered my memory of red.

- Good, details, the more the merrier.

- I saw somebody come over and just

take his camera out of his bag.

He had like a shoulder bag.

- Did anybody see the
camera, raise your hand.

Okay, we have three of you.

- And definitely grabbed a
camera out of the guy's bag,

silver camera and ran off
in the same direction,

so he sort of came from my right,

and then kept going off to the left.

- Something dropped, and then I realized

it was something that the older guy had.

- By the way, we've heard sort
of conflicting information

about the hat she was wearing,

some said it was grayish and
some said it was greenish.

Do you remember that hat?

- Yeah, I think it was definitely grayish.

- [Elizabeth] Grayish?

- Yeah.
- Okay.

- [Woman] I don't remember a hat at all.

- [Together] Me either.

- [Elizabeth] Really?

- I think she did have a
hat and maybe it fell off

when she started screaming at the guy.

(dramatic music)
(yelling in foreign language)

- [Narrator] So how does your memory

compare with the witnesses?

Here's a list of statements.

Stop us when you hear one that isn't true.

The woman's coat is red.

The man dropped his camera.

The camera is silver.

The woman's coat is white.

Did you say stop?

What if we told you every single one

of those statements is false.

- I would go on the stand and testify

that I saw the young lady
with a white blazer on.

- I'm actually adamant
about the fact that her coat

was either cream or a white wool coat.

- And before you know it another guy came

and he ran off and it
was a object dropped.

- His camera case was empty after.

- The truth is I don't know.

- Are we gonna find out
what happened? (laughs)

- [Narrator] And what if we told you,

to really throw you off track,

we've planted two extra
witnesses in the room

who have deliberately
messed with your memory

and the memories of everyone else.

Well, we did.

- I am a psychological
scientist, I study human memory.

Particularly, the malleability of memory.

I do experiments in
which we deliberately try

to distort people's memory for things

that have happened in the past.

Or even try to plant
entirely false memories

into the minds of people.

Hi.

- [Amanda] Hi, I'm Amanda.

- Hi Amanda, I'm Elizabeth.

- Hi nice to meet you!
- Jordan.

Nice to meet you.

- [Narrator] Before joining
the other witnesses,

Amanda and Jordan were given
a mission by Dr. Loftus.

- What we're gonna try to
do is distort the memories

of some of the real
witnesses to this theft.

What you remember should
contain a lot of true details,

things that if the real witnesses remember

they'll resonate to and
then the false information.

If you would say, "Oh by the way,

"the woman had long dark
hair and a red coat"

- Okay.

- Good to go.

- [Amanda] Okay, thank you!

- [Jordan] Thanks!

- [Narrator] Could two
fake witnesses plant

fake details about the woman's coat

and man's camera into the
minds of the real witnesses?

- [Elizabeth] Witnesses
can pick up information

from each other that they
incorporate into their memory

and it can cause an
alteration, a contamination,

a distortion, or even just
add to somebody's memory.

Who would be willing, if called,

to testify about something
that you're sure about.

So, virtually all of you, or many of you

would go to court and testify.

Alright, well let's take a
look at what actually happened.

(upbeat electronic music)

- Look look look, which
one did you say, this one.

You showed where the
money, your's the winner.

You see that, so when
you gotta pay attention.

(yelling in foreign language)

- What, what?

I don't understand you!

What are you saying, I can't,

I don't understand what you're saying I!

Hey, hey, did, hey!

Hey!
- Yo, yo, yo!

- It was not white!

(laughing)

- I'm the oldest one up here.

Leave me alone.

- Cheryl?

- I'm stunned, you guys
must've changed the video.

(laughing)

I'm in shock, I don't know what to say,

I was sure her coat was white.

Absolutely positive.

- I would've bet anything
that I was correct.

I don't think I would testify,

I'm serious because after that,
nah I wouldn't trust myself.

I would go on the stand and testify

that I saw the young lady
with a white blazer on.

- How about multi-color?

- Well.
(laughing)

Technically nobody said gray and that's--

(laughing)

- My name's Elizabeth
Loftus, I study memory

and memory distortion and actually

we were trying to deliberately
distort your memories.

First of all, we tried
to distort your memory

by putting shills in
there who deliberately

said something wrong.

So which of you are the shills?

- [Woman] Wow.

- Now I know why you placed them

at the outside where they could escape.

(laughing)

- [Narrator] The shills'
mission succeeded.

- And before you know it another guy came

and he ran off and there
was a object dropped.

It seemed like it was a camera bag.

- [Greg Walsh] What dropped to the ground?

- Uh, I didn't see, I
don't know what it was.

- It seemed like he dropped
his camera case as well,

cause his camera case was empty after.

Almost looked like she
grabbed something of his

and went running.

- It's really disturbing,
then any witness is faulty.

I mean, what are the odds of them

actually seeing what actually happened

if this many people saw
it and didn't see it.

- It's the kind of thing
that goes on in actual cases,

even with people like you who
are trying to be as accurate

and honest and
straightforward as possible.