NPR reports pscychologists at a New York college recreated the Kenny Conley case - in which the only person ever convicted for the brutal beating of an undercover black officer was a cop who had nothing to do with the beating - to test the theory that somebody could happen upon a savage attack and yet not realize it:
"We had two students beating up a third, punching him and kicking him and throwing him to the ground," Chabris says.
Via Boston Daily.
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Comments
did they also recreate the
By anon
Mon, 06/20/2011 - 11:18am
did they also recreate the scene there, midnight shift, lights and sirens on the cruisers that the officers jumped out of a lot of yelling. you can't recreate a scene when you were not there to see it for yourself . it get pretty crazy when once the vehicle they were chasing stops and the suspects jumped out and run in differnt direction. you chase the one you saw first and let the other officer do their job. and no I'm not a police offcers nor do I know officer conley.
always easy to second guess someone.
It was the coverup, not the
By Haviland
Mon, 06/20/2011 - 12:33pm
It was the coverup, not the incident itself which made this a big deal back then. BPD did not want to admit its officers royally screwed up a pursuit and acted poorly in a tense situation.
I think you missed the bottom line...
By R Hookup
Mon, 06/20/2011 - 12:43pm
Well, they confirmed that someone as focused as Conley might have been *can easily* miss the beatdown happening nearby. Even without the extra distractions, students running to follow someone missed an assault 40% of the time, even in daylight.
didn't actually read the
By anon
Mon, 06/20/2011 - 12:48pm
didn't actually read the article did you? Their experiments show that even under the best conditions almost half of the people didn't see the beating taking place.
did you read the article...?
By bandit
Mon, 06/20/2011 - 1:01pm
... because they are basically *supporting* conley's version of events -- that he did not see the beating. the only thing they are second guessing is his conviction, which has pretty much already been second guessed by the courts, for different reasons, and overturned.
they're not judging him, they're explaining why his story might be accurate.
Isn't selective attention old news?
By Jeff F
Mon, 06/20/2011 - 1:24pm
The [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo]canonic... example.
Jeff - the bear video is from
By mfinnigan
Mon, 06/20/2011 - 2:26pm
Jeff - the bear video is from the same team that's doing the work in the article. In fact, the researcher Chabris is on the title slide of your link, and also in the quote at the top of this UHub blog entry.
meta-irony!
By Jeff F
Mon, 06/20/2011 - 2:46pm
HA! I totally missed that!
I did wonder if it was on
By mfinnigan
Mon, 06/20/2011 - 2:49pm
I did wonder if it was on purpose...
Drowning doesn't look like drowning, either
By SwirlyGrrl
Mon, 06/20/2011 - 2:01pm
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2...
It gets down to what we are thinking we are seeing versus what is actually going on. If an event is rare enough, and/or we are not trained to spot it, we might miss it.
This is also why the TSA was advised to not make everyone anxious and angry. That makes it much easier to spot a person with a reason to be anxious if the people with no reason to be anxious (other than the TSA people behaving like barking jerks) are more relaxed.
So I guess we all agree now -
By NotWhitey
Mon, 06/20/2011 - 4:42pm
So I guess we all agree now - no more eyewitness evidence allowed in courts.
Who do you believe, baby - me, or your lyin' eyes?