TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference.
In the following TEDTalks video, Scott Fraser, a forensic psychologist who studies how humans remember crimes and bear witness to them, discusses how fallible eyewitness testimony can be and suggests that even close-up eyewitnesses to a crime can create “memories” they couldn’t have seen.
Why? Because the brain abhors a vacuum.
It’s a topic of particular interest that not only illustrates the subjective nature of eyewitness testimony, but also indirectly highlights the issue of how valuable crime scene evidence is to an investigation as the information gathered at a scene can help to either prove or disprove what a witness may have “seen” and “remembered”.
Please note: In the original version of this talk, Scott Fraser misspoke about available footage of Two World Trade Center (Tower 2). The misstatement has been edited out for clarity. To view the original video, please click here.
Scott Fraser Bio
When it comes to witnesses in criminal trials, the accuracy of human memory can mean the difference between life and death. Scott Fraser is an expert witness who researches what’s real and what’s selective when it comes to human memory and crime. His areas of expertise include human night vision, neuropsychopharmacology, and the effect of stress and other factors on the human mind. He has testified in criminal and civil cases throughout the U.S. in state and federal courts.
In 2011 Fraser was involved in the retrial of a 1992 murder case in which Francisco Carrillo was found guilty and sentenced to two life sentences in prison. Fraser and the team that hired him staged a dramatic reenactment of the night of the murder in question and showed the testimonies that had put Carrillo in jail were unreliable. After 20 years in jail for a crime he didn’t commit, Carrillo was freed.
Tags: eyewitness testimony, Scott Fraser, TEDTalks
