WEBVTT 00:00:02.097 --> 00:00:06.569 The murder happened a little over 21 years ago, 00:00:06.569 --> 00:00:10.848 January the 18th, 1991, 00:00:10.848 --> 00:00:13.109 in a small 00:00:13.109 --> 00:00:15.483 bedroom community 00:00:15.483 --> 00:00:18.318 of Lynwood, California, just a few miles 00:00:18.318 --> 00:00:20.816 southeast of Los Angeles. 00:00:20.816 --> 00:00:23.651 A father came out of his house 00:00:23.651 --> 00:00:27.058 to tell his teenage son and his five friends 00:00:27.058 --> 00:00:29.837 that it was time for them to stop horsing around 00:00:29.837 --> 00:00:32.747 on the front lawn and on the sidewalk, 00:00:32.747 --> 00:00:35.655 to get home, finish their schoolwork, 00:00:35.655 --> 00:00:38.401 and prepare themselves for bed. 00:00:38.401 --> 00:00:41.971 And as the father was administering these instructions, 00:00:41.971 --> 00:00:45.309 a car drove by, slowly, 00:00:45.309 --> 00:00:48.211 and just after it passed the father and the teenagers, 00:00:48.211 --> 00:00:52.199 a hand went out from the front passenger window, 00:00:52.199 --> 00:00:57.461 and -- "Bam, Bam!" -- killing the father. 00:00:57.461 --> 00:01:00.620 And the car sped off. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:00.620 --> 00:01:02.461 The police, 00:01:02.461 --> 00:01:06.291 investigating officers, were amazingly efficient. 00:01:06.291 --> 00:01:08.721 They considered all the usual culprits, 00:01:08.721 --> 00:01:13.288 and in less than 24 hours, they had selected their suspect: 00:01:13.288 --> 00:01:16.866 Francisco Carrillo, a 17-year-old kid 00:01:16.866 --> 00:01:18.903 who lived about two or three blocks away 00:01:18.903 --> 00:01:21.638 from where the shooting occurred. 00:01:21.638 --> 00:01:26.286 They found photos of him. They prepared a photo array, 00:01:26.286 --> 00:01:29.870 and the day after the shooting, 00:01:29.870 --> 00:01:32.763 they showed it to one of the teenagers, and he said, 00:01:32.763 --> 00:01:35.082 "That's the picture. 00:01:35.082 --> 00:01:40.469 That's the shooter I saw that killed the father." NOTE Paragraph 00:01:40.469 --> 00:01:43.046 That was all a preliminary hearing judge had 00:01:43.046 --> 00:01:48.155 to listen to, to bind Mr. Carrillo over to stand trial 00:01:48.155 --> 00:01:50.842 for a first-degree murder. 00:01:50.842 --> 00:01:54.049 In the investigation that followed before the actual trial, 00:01:54.049 --> 00:01:57.460 each of the other five teenagers was shown 00:01:57.460 --> 00:02:01.508 photographs, the same photo array. 00:02:01.508 --> 00:02:04.332 The picture that we best can determine was probably 00:02:04.332 --> 00:02:06.604 the one that they were shown in the photo array 00:02:06.604 --> 00:02:10.301 is in your bottom left hand corner of these mug shots. 00:02:10.301 --> 00:02:13.737 The reason we're not sure absolutely is because 00:02:13.737 --> 00:02:18.170 of the nature of evidence preservation 00:02:18.170 --> 00:02:20.454 in our judicial system, 00:02:20.454 --> 00:02:25.202 but that's another whole TEDx talk for later. (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:02:25.202 --> 00:02:28.108 So at the actual trial, 00:02:28.108 --> 00:02:31.108 all six of the teenagers testified, 00:02:31.108 --> 00:02:34.866 and indicated the identifications they had made 00:02:34.866 --> 00:02:38.342 in the photo array. 00:02:38.342 --> 00:02:43.123 He was convicted. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, 00:02:43.123 --> 00:02:48.582 and transported to Folsom Prison. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:48.582 --> 00:02:50.671 So what's wrong? 00:02:50.671 --> 00:02:55.437 Straightforward, fair trial, full investigation. 00:02:55.437 --> 00:02:58.978 Oh yes, no gun was ever found. 00:02:58.978 --> 00:03:03.132 No vehicle was ever identified as being the one 00:03:03.132 --> 00:03:06.356 in which the shooter had extended his arm, 00:03:06.356 --> 00:03:09.641 and no person was ever charged with being the driver 00:03:09.641 --> 00:03:12.883 of the shooter's vehicle. 00:03:12.883 --> 00:03:16.764 And Mr. Carrillo's alibi? 00:03:16.764 --> 00:03:22.058 Which of those parents here in the room might not lie 00:03:22.058 --> 00:03:24.877 concerning the whereabouts of your son or daughter 00:03:24.877 --> 00:03:28.774 in an investigation of a killing? NOTE Paragraph 00:03:30.874 --> 00:03:33.596 Sent to prison, 00:03:33.596 --> 00:03:37.094 adamantly insisting on his innocence, 00:03:37.094 --> 00:03:41.831 which he has consistently for 21 years. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:41.831 --> 00:03:45.302 So what's the problem? 00:03:45.302 --> 00:03:48.026 The problems, actually, for this kind of case 00:03:48.026 --> 00:03:51.935 come manyfold from decades of scientific research 00:03:51.935 --> 00:03:55.837 involving human memory. 00:03:55.837 --> 00:03:58.651 First of all, we have all the statistical analyses 00:03:58.651 --> 00:04:00.858 from the Innocence Project work, 00:04:00.858 --> 00:04:03.555 where we know that we have, what, 00:04:03.555 --> 00:04:07.336 250, 280 documented cases now where people have 00:04:07.336 --> 00:04:11.408 been wrongfully convicted and subsequently exonerated, 00:04:11.408 --> 00:04:17.754 some from death row, on the basis of later DNA analysis, 00:04:17.754 --> 00:04:21.415 and you know that over three quarters of all of those cases 00:04:21.415 --> 00:04:27.686 of exoneration involved only eyewitness identification 00:04:27.686 --> 00:04:31.333 testimony during the trial that convicted them. 00:04:31.333 --> 00:04:36.508 We know that eyewitness identifications are fallible. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:36.508 --> 00:04:38.728 The other comes from an interesting aspect 00:04:38.728 --> 00:04:41.931 of human memory that's related to various brain functions 00:04:41.931 --> 00:04:44.497 but I can sum up for the sake of brevity here 00:04:44.497 --> 00:04:46.881 in a simple line: 00:04:46.881 --> 00:04:51.629 The brain abhors a vacuum. 00:04:51.629 --> 00:04:55.539 Under the best of observation conditions, 00:04:55.539 --> 00:04:57.411 the absolute best, 00:04:57.411 --> 00:05:01.124 we only detect, encode and store in our brains 00:05:01.124 --> 00:05:04.819 bits and pieces of the entire experience in front of us, 00:05:04.819 --> 00:05:07.148 and they're stored in different parts of the brain. 00:05:07.148 --> 00:05:11.303 So now, when it's important for us to be able to recall 00:05:11.303 --> 00:05:14.324 what it was that we experienced, 00:05:14.324 --> 00:05:19.602 we have an incomplete, we have a partial store, 00:05:19.602 --> 00:05:22.055 and what happens? 00:05:22.055 --> 00:05:24.879 Below awareness, with no requirement for any kind of 00:05:24.879 --> 00:05:30.050 motivated processing, the brain fills in information 00:05:30.050 --> 00:05:32.475 that was not there, 00:05:32.475 --> 00:05:34.925 not originally stored, 00:05:34.925 --> 00:05:37.469 from inference, from speculation, 00:05:37.469 --> 00:05:40.281 from sources of information that came to you, 00:05:40.281 --> 00:05:43.416 as the observer, after the observation. 00:05:43.416 --> 00:05:45.490 But it happens without awareness such that 00:05:45.490 --> 00:05:49.124 you don't, aren't even cognizant of it occurring. 00:05:49.124 --> 00:05:51.391 It's called reconstructed memories. 00:05:51.391 --> 00:05:55.690 It happens to us in all the aspects of our life, all the time. 00:05:55.690 --> 00:05:58.954 It was those two considerations, among others -- 00:05:58.954 --> 00:06:03.459 reconstructed memory, the fact about the eyewitness fallibility -- 00:06:03.459 --> 00:06:06.515 that was part of the instigation 00:06:06.515 --> 00:06:08.964 for a group of appeal attorneys 00:06:08.964 --> 00:06:12.436 led by an amazing lawyer named Ellen Eggers 00:06:12.436 --> 00:06:16.564 to pool their experience and their talents together 00:06:16.564 --> 00:06:18.401 and petition a superior court 00:06:18.401 --> 00:06:23.471 for a retrial for Francisco Carrillo. 00:06:23.471 --> 00:06:27.859 They retained me, as a forensic neurophysiologist, 00:06:27.859 --> 00:06:30.001 because I had expertise 00:06:30.001 --> 00:06:32.121 in eyewitness memory identification, 00:06:32.121 --> 00:06:35.316 which obviously makes sense for this case, right? 00:06:35.316 --> 00:06:38.660 But also because I have expertise and testify about 00:06:38.660 --> 00:06:43.037 the nature of human night vision. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:43.037 --> 00:06:46.070 Well, what's that got to do with this? 00:06:46.070 --> 00:06:49.372 Well, when you read through the case materials 00:06:49.372 --> 00:06:52.094 in this Carrillo case, 00:06:52.094 --> 00:06:54.924 one of the things that suddenly strikes you is that 00:06:54.924 --> 00:06:58.414 the investigating officers said the lighting was good 00:06:58.414 --> 00:07:01.948 at the crime scene, at the shooting. 00:07:01.948 --> 00:07:05.405 All the teenagers testified during the trial 00:07:05.405 --> 00:07:08.884 that they could see very well. 00:07:08.884 --> 00:07:11.724 But this occurred in mid-January, 00:07:11.724 --> 00:07:17.723 in the Northern Hemisphere, at 7 p.m. at night. 00:07:17.723 --> 00:07:20.748 So when I did the calculations 00:07:20.748 --> 00:07:22.960 for the lunar data and the solar data 00:07:22.960 --> 00:07:26.139 at that location on Earth at the time of the incident 00:07:26.139 --> 00:07:28.187 of the shooting, all right, 00:07:28.187 --> 00:07:30.804 it was well past the end of civil twilight 00:07:30.804 --> 00:07:33.060 and there was no moon up that night. 00:07:33.060 --> 00:07:35.339 So all the light in this area from the sun and the moon 00:07:35.339 --> 00:07:37.923 is what you see on the screen right here. 00:07:37.923 --> 00:07:40.837 The only lighting in that area had to come 00:07:40.837 --> 00:07:44.107 from artificial sources, 00:07:44.107 --> 00:07:46.875 and that's where I go out and I do the actual reconstruction 00:07:46.875 --> 00:07:49.672 of the scene with photometers, with various measures 00:07:49.672 --> 00:07:51.646 of illumination and various other measures of 00:07:51.646 --> 00:07:56.113 color perception, along with special cameras 00:07:56.113 --> 00:07:58.242 and high-speed film, right? 00:07:58.242 --> 00:08:01.171 Take all the measurements and record them, right? 00:08:01.171 --> 00:08:03.328 And then take photographs, and this is what the scene 00:08:03.328 --> 00:08:04.763 looked like at the time of the shooting 00:08:04.763 --> 00:08:07.229 from the position of the teenagers 00:08:07.229 --> 00:08:11.051 looking at the car going by and shooting. 00:08:11.051 --> 00:08:13.356 This is looking directly across the street 00:08:13.356 --> 00:08:15.684 from where they were standing. 00:08:15.684 --> 00:08:18.037 Remember, the investigating officers' report said 00:08:18.037 --> 00:08:20.270 the lighting was good. 00:08:20.270 --> 00:08:22.704 The teenagers said they could see very well. 00:08:22.704 --> 00:08:25.955 This is looking down to the east, 00:08:25.955 --> 00:08:29.651 where the shooting vehicle sped off, 00:08:29.651 --> 00:08:34.543 and this is the lighting directly behind the father 00:08:34.543 --> 00:08:36.884 and the teenagers. 00:08:36.884 --> 00:08:40.795 As you can see, it is at best poor. 00:08:40.795 --> 00:08:44.668 No one's going to call this well-lit, good lighting, 00:08:44.668 --> 00:08:47.862 and in fact, as nice as these pictures are, 00:08:47.862 --> 00:08:51.323 and the reason we take them is I knew I was going to have to testify in court, 00:08:51.323 --> 00:08:54.515 and a picture is worth more than a thousand words 00:08:54.515 --> 00:08:56.915 when you're trying to communicate numbers, 00:08:56.915 --> 00:09:00.187 abstract concepts like lux, the international measurement 00:09:00.187 --> 00:09:05.363 of illumination, the Ishihara color perception test values. 00:09:05.363 --> 00:09:08.524 When you present those to people who are not well-versed 00:09:08.524 --> 00:09:11.640 in those aspects of science and that, they become 00:09:11.640 --> 00:09:14.019 salamanders in the noonday sun. It's like 00:09:14.019 --> 00:09:16.933 talking about the tangent of the visual angle, all right? 00:09:16.933 --> 00:09:19.718 Their eyes just glaze over, all right? 00:09:19.718 --> 00:09:24.077 A good forensic expert also has to be a good educator, 00:09:24.077 --> 00:09:26.236 a good communicator, and that's part of the reason 00:09:26.236 --> 00:09:28.531 why we take the pictures, to show not only 00:09:28.531 --> 00:09:31.331 where the light sources are, and what we call the spill, 00:09:31.331 --> 00:09:33.960 the distribution, but also so that it's easier 00:09:33.960 --> 00:09:37.995 for the trier of fact to understand the circumstances. 00:09:37.995 --> 00:09:40.868 So these are some of the pictures that, in fact, 00:09:40.868 --> 00:09:43.283 I used when I testified, 00:09:43.283 --> 00:09:45.148 but more importantly were, to me as a scientist, 00:09:45.148 --> 00:09:47.131 are those readings, the photometer readings, 00:09:47.131 --> 00:09:51.731 which I can then convert into actual predictions 00:09:51.731 --> 00:09:55.251 of the visual capability of the human eye 00:09:55.251 --> 00:09:57.627 under those circumstances, 00:09:57.627 --> 00:10:01.275 and from my readings that I recorded at the scene 00:10:01.275 --> 00:10:03.515 under the same solar and lunar conditions 00:10:03.515 --> 00:10:06.507 at the same time, so on and so forth, right, 00:10:06.507 --> 00:10:07.913 I could predict 00:10:07.913 --> 00:10:10.105 that there would be no reliable color perception, 00:10:10.105 --> 00:10:12.419 which is crucial for face recognition, 00:10:12.419 --> 00:10:14.731 and that there would be only scotopic vision, 00:10:14.731 --> 00:10:16.691 which means there would be very little resolution, 00:10:16.691 --> 00:10:18.939 what we call boundary or edge detection, 00:10:18.939 --> 00:10:21.254 and that furthermore, because the eyes would have been 00:10:21.254 --> 00:10:25.059 totally dilated under this light, the depth of field, 00:10:25.059 --> 00:10:28.217 the distance at which you can focus and see details, 00:10:28.217 --> 00:10:33.611 would have been less than 18 inches away. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:33.611 --> 00:10:36.115 I testified to that to the court, 00:10:36.115 --> 00:10:38.548 and while the judge was very attentive, 00:10:38.548 --> 00:10:41.155 it had been a very, very long hearing 00:10:41.155 --> 00:10:45.899 for this petition for a retrial, and as a result, 00:10:45.899 --> 00:10:47.659 I noticed out of the corner of my eye 00:10:47.659 --> 00:10:51.804 that I thought that maybe the judge was going to need 00:10:51.804 --> 00:10:53.867 a little more of a nudge 00:10:53.867 --> 00:10:56.375 than just more numbers. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:56.375 --> 00:10:58.667 And here I became a bit audacious, 00:10:58.667 --> 00:11:00.187 and I turned 00:11:00.187 --> 00:11:02.579 and I asked the judge, 00:11:02.579 --> 00:11:04.987 I said, "Your Honor, I think you should go out 00:11:04.987 --> 00:11:07.691 and look at the scene yourself." NOTE Paragraph 00:11:07.691 --> 00:11:10.832 Now I may have used a tone which was more like a dare 00:11:10.832 --> 00:11:13.236 than a request — (Laughter) — 00:11:13.236 --> 00:11:17.683 but nonetheless, it's to this man's credit and his courage 00:11:17.683 --> 00:11:21.299 that he said, "Yes, I will." 00:11:21.299 --> 00:11:25.291 A shocker in American jurisprudence. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:25.291 --> 00:11:27.763 So in fact, we found the same identical conditions, 00:11:27.763 --> 00:11:29.804 we reconstructed the entire thing again, 00:11:29.804 --> 00:11:33.814 he came out with an entire brigade of sheriff's officers 00:11:33.814 --> 00:11:38.971 to protect him in this community, all right? (Laughter) 00:11:38.971 --> 00:11:44.025 We had him stand actually slightly in the street, 00:11:44.025 --> 00:11:47.205 so closer to the suspect vehicle, the shooter vehicle, 00:11:47.205 --> 00:11:49.947 than the actual teenagers were, 00:11:49.947 --> 00:11:52.171 so he stood a few feet from the curb 00:11:52.171 --> 00:11:54.783 toward the middle of the street. 00:11:54.783 --> 00:11:57.700 We had a car that came by, 00:11:57.700 --> 00:12:02.651 same identical car as described by the teenagers, right? 00:12:02.651 --> 00:12:04.588 It had a driver and a passenger, 00:12:04.588 --> 00:12:08.411 and after the car had passed the judge by, 00:12:08.411 --> 00:12:11.925 the passenger extended his hand, 00:12:11.925 --> 00:12:16.499 pointed it back to the judge as the car continued on, 00:12:16.499 --> 00:12:18.718 just as the teenagers had described it, right? 00:12:18.718 --> 00:12:21.571 Now, he didn't use a real gun in his hand, 00:12:21.571 --> 00:12:23.989 so he had a black object in his hand that was similar 00:12:23.989 --> 00:12:25.968 to the gun that was described. 00:12:25.968 --> 00:12:28.814 He pointed by, and this is what the judge saw. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:28.814 --> 00:12:35.913 This is the car 30 feet away from the judge. 00:12:35.913 --> 00:12:38.825 There's an arm sticking out of the passenger side 00:12:38.825 --> 00:12:41.198 and pointed back at you. 00:12:41.198 --> 00:12:43.163 That's 30 feet away. 00:12:43.163 --> 00:12:45.355 Some of the teenagers said that in fact the car 00:12:45.355 --> 00:12:47.931 was 15 feet away when it shot. 00:12:47.931 --> 00:12:51.595 Okay. There's 15 feet. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:51.595 --> 00:12:55.765 At this point, I became a little concerned. 00:12:55.765 --> 00:13:00.499 This judge is someone you'd never want to play poker with. 00:13:00.499 --> 00:13:04.787 He was totally stoic. I couldn't see a twitch of his eyebrow. 00:13:04.787 --> 00:13:08.056 I couldn't see the slightest bend of his head. 00:13:08.056 --> 00:13:11.557 I had no sense of how he was reacting to this, 00:13:11.557 --> 00:13:14.597 and after he looked at this reenactment, 00:13:14.597 --> 00:13:15.677 he turned to me and he says, 00:13:15.677 --> 00:13:18.935 "Is there anything else you want me to look at?" NOTE Paragraph 00:13:18.935 --> 00:13:23.430 I said, "Your honor," and I don't know whether I was 00:13:23.430 --> 00:13:26.387 emboldened by the scientific measurements that I had 00:13:26.387 --> 00:13:30.083 in my pocket and my knowledge that they are accurate, 00:13:30.083 --> 00:13:32.338 or whether it was just sheer stupidity, 00:13:32.338 --> 00:13:35.163 which is what the defense lawyers thought — (Laughter) — 00:13:35.163 --> 00:13:36.915 when they heard me say, 00:13:36.915 --> 00:13:39.619 "Yes, Your Honor, I want you stand right there 00:13:39.619 --> 00:13:43.955 and I want the car to go around the block again 00:13:43.955 --> 00:13:47.309 and I want it to come and I want it to stop 00:13:47.309 --> 00:13:51.499 right in front of you, three to four feet away, 00:13:51.499 --> 00:13:54.955 and I want the passenger to extend his hand 00:13:54.955 --> 00:13:56.971 with a black object and point it right at you, 00:13:56.971 --> 00:14:02.691 and you can look at it as long as you want." 00:14:02.691 --> 00:14:07.118 And that's what he saw. (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:14:07.118 --> 00:14:10.958 You'll notice, which was also in my test report, 00:14:10.958 --> 00:14:13.603 all the dominant lighting is coming from the north side, 00:14:13.603 --> 00:14:15.346 which means that the shooter's face would 00:14:15.346 --> 00:14:17.962 have been photo-occluded. It would have been backlit. 00:14:17.962 --> 00:14:19.864 Furthermore, the roof of the car 00:14:19.864 --> 00:14:24.138 is causing what we call a shadow cloud inside the car 00:14:24.138 --> 00:14:27.468 which is making it darker. 00:14:27.468 --> 00:14:31.580 And this is three to four feet away. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:31.580 --> 00:14:34.708 Why did I take the risk? 00:14:34.708 --> 00:14:38.937 I knew that the depth of field was 18 inches or less. 00:14:38.937 --> 00:14:40.604 Three to four feet, it might as well have been 00:14:40.604 --> 00:14:45.076 a football field away. 00:14:45.076 --> 00:14:47.284 This is what he saw. 00:14:47.284 --> 00:14:51.084 He went back, there was a few more days of evidence 00:14:51.084 --> 00:14:53.388 that was heard. At the end of it, 00:14:53.388 --> 00:14:56.016 he made the judgment that he was going to grant 00:14:56.016 --> 00:14:59.094 the petition for a retrial. 00:14:59.094 --> 00:15:01.572 And furthermore, he released Mr. Carrillo 00:15:01.572 --> 00:15:04.559 so that he could aid in the preparation of his own defense 00:15:04.559 --> 00:15:10.578 if the prosecution decided to retry him. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:10.578 --> 00:15:12.888 Which they decided not to. 00:15:12.888 --> 00:15:17.949 He is now a freed man. (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:15:17.949 --> 00:15:21.892 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:15:21.892 --> 00:15:26.996 This is him embracing his grandmother-in-law. 00:15:26.996 --> 00:15:31.071 He -- His girlfriend was pregnant when he went to trial, 00:15:31.071 --> 00:15:35.156 right? And she had a little baby boy. 00:15:35.156 --> 00:15:37.837 He and his son are both attending Cal State, Long Beach 00:15:37.837 --> 00:15:44.025 right now taking classes. (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:15:44.025 --> 00:15:47.988 And what does this example -- 00:15:47.988 --> 00:15:52.332 what's important to keep in mind for ourselves? NOTE Paragraph 00:15:52.332 --> 00:15:56.028 First of all, there's a long history of antipathy 00:15:56.028 --> 00:15:58.108 between science and the law 00:15:58.108 --> 00:16:00.508 in American jurisprudence. 00:16:00.508 --> 00:16:03.956 I could regale you with horror stories of ignorance 00:16:03.956 --> 00:16:08.292 over decades of experience as a forensic expert 00:16:08.292 --> 00:16:12.798 of just trying to get science into the courtroom. 00:16:12.798 --> 00:16:17.732 The opposing council always fight it and oppose it. NOTE Paragraph 00:16:17.732 --> 00:16:21.119 One suggestion is that all of us become much more 00:16:21.119 --> 00:16:23.988 attuned to the necessity, through policy, 00:16:23.988 --> 00:16:26.044 through procedures, 00:16:26.044 --> 00:16:29.228 to get more science in the courtroom, 00:16:29.228 --> 00:16:31.539 and I think one large step toward that 00:16:31.539 --> 00:16:33.381 is more requirements, 00:16:33.381 --> 00:16:35.940 with all due respect to the law schools, 00:16:35.940 --> 00:16:41.051 of science, technology, engineering, mathematics 00:16:41.051 --> 00:16:43.028 for anyone going into the law, 00:16:43.028 --> 00:16:46.652 because they become the judges. 00:16:46.652 --> 00:16:49.700 Think about how we select our judges in this country. 00:16:49.700 --> 00:16:53.060 It's very different than most other cultures. All right? NOTE Paragraph 00:16:53.060 --> 00:16:55.470 The other one that I want to suggest, 00:16:55.470 --> 00:16:57.900 the caution that all of us have to have, 00:16:57.900 --> 00:16:59.740 I constantly have to remind myself, 00:16:59.740 --> 00:17:02.843 about just how accurate are the memories 00:17:02.843 --> 00:17:08.212 that we know are true, that we believe in? 00:17:08.212 --> 00:17:11.596 There is decades of research, 00:17:11.596 --> 00:17:15.764 examples and examples of cases like this, 00:17:15.764 --> 00:17:17.732 where individuals 00:17:17.732 --> 00:17:21.244 really, really believe. None of those teenagers 00:17:21.244 --> 00:17:23.076 who identified him 00:17:23.076 --> 00:17:26.352 thought that they were picking the wrong person. 00:17:26.352 --> 00:17:29.706 None of them thought they couldn't see the person's face. 00:17:29.706 --> 00:17:31.838 We all have to be very careful. 00:17:31.838 --> 00:17:35.478 All our memories are reconstructed memories. 00:17:35.478 --> 00:17:37.876 They are the product of what we originally experienced 00:17:37.876 --> 00:17:40.609 and everything that's happened afterwards. 00:17:40.609 --> 00:17:42.660 They're dynamic. 00:17:42.660 --> 00:17:45.148 They're malleable. They're volatile, 00:17:45.148 --> 00:17:49.172 and as a result, we all need to remember to be cautious, 00:17:49.172 --> 00:17:52.492 that the accuracy of our memories 00:17:52.492 --> 00:17:55.996 is not measured in how vivid they are 00:17:55.996 --> 00:18:01.127 nor how certain you are that they're correct. NOTE Paragraph 00:18:01.127 --> 00:20:30.217 Thank you. (Applause)