Mark Ashcraft Rady cond) Kathryn Schult. Being Wrong Attress the Margin of Raymond S. Nicketson. Confirmation Bus Ubiquitous. We ABOUT James Reason, Hrant Emar (15) Review of General Psychology 2.2(1998): 175 220 Les or bervatiem YOOLS FONCTIE neony between the Sand Van tad distance, the scrable doubt stances 7.3 Environment and Error Duration асrоѕѕ a rе. Have you ever thou On August 23, 1927, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti wete Charlestown State Prison in Boston, Massachusetts for the murder of two course of a robbery in the nearby town of Braintree seven years earlier. Mat believed the conviction was in error, not least of all because of a number aspects of the witness testimony that was marshaled against the past. "The largely involved matters of environment. As in the fictional Twelve Angry Men real witnesses made their observations at night, from various distances, and so ures they observed through a car window were in motion. Environments one of the most common causes of error in witness observations and other look analytically at the environmental factors that most commonly caused glimfnding it her Cheir an observation is Sacco www to tor for an instas is f somethineb use an ob be sudde Obstruction and distraction all sometime Think about the difference between observing something that's motionless and fairly Motion Then caugh than to i is id close on a bright, sunny day, in a quiet location, and with no obstructions compared with observing something moving hundreds of yards away on a foggy night, during a downpour in a thunder storm, with loud sirens going off, in a canyon known for its echoes, immersed in a churning crowd of panicked, shrieking people, all the while looking through dirty glasses with outdated prescription lenses. All these elements of this complex environment can divide your attention and obstruct your perception, and so the physical environment of atmosphere, sound, light, and obstructive material can play havoc with your capacity to make accurate observations. Observations may be compromised when made, for example, while your child is screaming with pain or simply for attention. Observations about peripheral matters made in the midst of activities requiring intense focus - perhaps landing an aircraft or walking a tight rope or dodging a sniper's bullets - are likely to be less reliable. Good critical thinkers will ask questions and take note of the physical conditions under which observations have been made. Could those conditions have led well- intentioned and sincere people to err? Could they have produced distortions or illu- sions that may have led observers astray? Does the conviction with which a witness asserts claims seem warranted given the difficult circumstances of observation? Might TOOLS FOR CRITICAL THINKING ABOUT EXPERIENCE an incongruity between the certainty of a witnesses were cumstances of observation suggest unreliability, even met een the case of Sacco and Vanzetti, that observations were made a man rial distance, and through a moving automobile window certades question, not reasonable doubt Duration lectrocuted . Women in er. Many be of suspicious The suspic ery Men, there s, and the ent is, indeed herwise. Ler One of the wees who Have you ever thought you saw an old friend, a family membet a womentar glimpse across a room or in a crowd only to be disappointed upon calding, wp to her and finding it to have been a complete stranger The length of time live an observation is relevant to the functioning of our to assessing their reliability in any particular obseritive capacities and there identified Sacco and Vanzetti accused the defendant after only seeing the perpetra tor for an instant in the getaway car. Think about how different a good long look something is from a momentary glance or a flash. The observation bave been momentary because the light source or soundo because an obstruction suddenly blocked or unblocked the way, or because the per ceiver suddenly lost consciousness or perceptual ability. It takes time to take and process all the details of a face or a complex scene or a voice of a texture, and the mind, as we saw in the closure effect, is prone to enhance perceptions imaginatively sometimes at the cost of accuracy. touch was just a flash or an instan, ce trouble. Motion -ss and fairly as compared ght, during known for all the white e elements perception Then there's the fact that the getaway car was speeding away at the moment the witness caught a glimpse of its occupants. Objects in motion are harder to perceive accurately than stationary things. Stand near a busy highway with a friend some evening and try to identify features of those riding in the cars as they pass, note how much easier if is to identify your companion. Difficulties arise in the converse situation, 100. Try to identify people on the roadside as you speed by them in a car or train. Try to grasp the contents of a conversation in a car or boat speeding along. It isn't easy, even under otherwise good conditions. Critical thinkers should ask, therefore, whether (1) the objects of perception were in motion when perceived; (2) whether the perceiver was in motion; and (3) whether the light or sound source was in motion. An object perceived only by the light of a passing car or train is more difficult to grasp than one observed under a stable light Distance Two of the witnesses that identified Nicola Sacco claimed to have seen him, not only in a moving vehicle and for just a moment, but also at a distance of over 70 feet. Hawks 208 RAISON TOOLS FOR CRITICAL THINKING ABOUT EXPERIENCE and other birds of prey are renowned for their distance vision, Vos beings. Critical thinkers scrutinizing the evidence of observation will fore, to inquire at what distance an observation is made, Roughly speaking the distance the less reliable the observation. TOOLS Context and comparison we SEE ALSO Cogniti skeptic Scienti SC structed such that standing at one end makes you appear to be a giant, laty the Have you ever seen a perspective-bending "Alice in Wonderland"room was ordinary furniture and doors, while walking to the other end seems to trato you into a shrunken and tiny being. It's not you, of course, who has changed but the dopo the same person surrounded by shorter people ple and things seem short, wie and smaller things seems large. object set against a brightly colored backdrop may seem dull, while the same doen set against a neutral background may seem to possess a more intense hue. The that surround you. Those surrounded by taller READING dores Bruce Go Theodo Now As ors that surround an object, too, can make it appear to change color. Ane appear to be orange when surrounded by blue, while that same object will COM brown when surrounded by a more vivid orange. Critical thinkers, therefore, should attend to the context in which a perceived object is observed, especially when com parative terms are enlisted to describe it. If something is described as tall or short pitched, ask about what surrounded it when it was observed. A woman's voice is like object large or small, forceful or gentle, thick or thin, blue or purple, high-pitched or low to be high-pitched compared to a man's but lower-pitched than a child's. Ask abou observations and descriptions,"compared to what?" It may is to do imagin and a chick chick som Availability error Pica US A more general consideration of environment that often leads to distortion is what critical thinkers call availability error. It would be uncharitable (see 5.5) to say that people are often lazy about acquiring all the information they need before making judgments; but it wouldn't be improper to say that people are prone to give more weight to evidence and data that are readily available than information that may be relevant but that's hard to acquire. When people use Google to find the answer to a query, they typically only check out the first page of results. When people look into what kind of car is best to buy, they typically only ask the advice of those around them. Even scholars often neglect to consider scholarly literature written in languages they cannot read. A witness to a crime who is difficult to find might never be interviewed. Information that might take days or longer of tedious sifting through libraries, billing records, or that is available only in foreign languages might be ignored. We tend to consider only what is easily acquired, and we tend to give disproportionally greater weight to what we've already come by, even if we know other relevant information remains out there. In short, we prefer what's available. Beware, however, the truth may not be as readily available as error.
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