Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hi There,
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren Vogel bomb here. Slow motion video can
Speaker 1: make the boring seem exciting and the extraordinary even more incredible.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of everything from Wonder Woman's fight scenes to
Speaker 1: epic t Time here. But it turns out that slowing
Speaker 1: videos not only amps up the drama of a scene,
Speaker 1: it also creates bias in viewers, specifically when it comes
Speaker 1: to jury members. In court cases, video footage of crimes
Speaker 1: often plays an important role in determining a perpetrator's punishment.
Speaker 1: In some trials, jurors may watch slow motion video of
Speaker 1: the criminal acting question, supposedly to better analyze the events
Speaker 1: that took place, But a group of researchers, writing that
Speaker 1: any benefit of video replay should be weighed against its
Speaker 1: potentially biasing effects, conducted a study that suggests slow mo
Speaker 1: video doesn't always help jurors make well informed decisions. Instead,
Speaker 1: the elongated time of the video makes it seem like
Speaker 1: the crime took longer to unfold, so jurors are more
Speaker 1: likely to perceive the action as intentional. Whether a jury
Speaker 1: thinks the crime was premeditated can be the difference between
Speaker 1: the second and first degree murder charge, so it's literally
Speaker 1: a matter of life and death. This was the case
Speaker 1: in the two thousand nine murder trial of John Lewis,
Speaker 1: which the researchers used as the basis for the study.
Speaker 1: In the trial, the prosecution showed a slow motion video
Speaker 1: of Lewis shooting a Philadelphia police officer, and the defense
Speaker 1: argued that the stretched time made the act seem premeditated.
Speaker 1: The prosecution rebutted by pointing out that the jurors also
Speaker 1: saw the video at regular speed. To test whether sloma
Speaker 1: video actually increases perception of time and intent, the researchers
Speaker 1: conducted for studies. In the first, participants acting as jurors
Speaker 1: saw either the video of Lewis slowed down or at
Speaker 1: normal speed. In the second, the researchers tested perceived intention
Speaker 1: in another scenario an NFL video of a prohibited helmet
Speaker 1: to helmet tackle, as well as the effect of video
Speaker 1: duration by pausing the video instead of slowing it at
Speaker 1: crucial moments. In the third, they tested whether displaying and
Speaker 1: mentioning the video's speed decreased bias, and in the fourth,
Speaker 1: they had participants watched either the SlowMo version or the
Speaker 1: regular video or both to test whether the group's perceptions
Speaker 1: would be different. Confirming the researchers hypothesis, showing slowed down
Speaker 1: video quadruple to the odds that participants would believe the
Speaker 1: shooter guilty of intentional murder before deliberation, partially because of
Speaker 1: the increased amount of time that the jurors felt the
Speaker 1: dependant had to act. Also, viewers who watched the slow
Speaker 1: motion tackle the second study were more likely to think
Speaker 1: it was premeditated as well, and pausing the video didn't
Speaker 1: change that. For the third study, even though viewers were
Speaker 1: repeatedly reminded that it was a slow motion video, that
Speaker 1: didn't change the results. They were the same as in
Speaker 1: the first study, and the final studies showed that the
Speaker 1: viewers who saw only the SloMo version of events were
Speaker 1: three point four times more likely to convict than viewers
Speaker 1: who only saw the regular version. Viewers who saw both
Speaker 1: speeds were one point five times more likely to convict.
Speaker 1: This demonstrates that showing both speeds lessons bias, but doesn't
Speaker 1: completely eliminate it. The authors admit that the study doesn't
Speaker 1: determine the effect of slowed video on the accuracy of
Speaker 1: viewers judgment but considering the fact that the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: of Pennsylvania ruled the slow MO in Lewis's case admissible
Speaker 1: and that Lewis is now on death row despite his appeals,
Speaker 1: the results of this study could change how we view
Speaker 1: the role of videos in determining criminal sentences, and with
Speaker 1: the explosion of police body cameras, surveillance cameras, and smartphone video,
Speaker 1: the effective video replaced speed on jurors could have even
Speaker 1: more importance in the coming years. Today's episode was written
Speaker 1: by Eve's Jeffcote and produced by Tristan McNeil. For more
Speaker 1: on this end lots of other criminal topics, visit our
Speaker 1: home planet, how stuff Works dot com.