Hundreds of judges at a judicial conference last week were shown a slide with various diagrams of pennies.

The speaker wanted to know: Which of the 13 diagrams depicted a true penny?

Some diagrams had Abe Lincoln facing left, the others right. Some had the year of issue on the lower right, others had it elsewhere on the coin. Some had "In God We Trust" written across the top, while others had it on the bottom.

You get the idea.

Most of the judges — hundreds of General District and Juvenile and Domestic Relations judges from around the state attending the annual conference — honed in on number 7 or 8.

Yet in fact, none of the penny renditions was correct, said Karen Newirth, an eyewitness identification expert at the Innocence Project, a group that works to reverse wrongful convictions. Only one of the judges — out of hundreds sitting in the audience at the Cavalier Hotel in Virginia Beach — said the answer was "none of the above."

http://www.dailypress.com/news/breaking/dp-nws-crime-notebook-0819-20120819,0,2401764.story?track=rss

8/18/2012 11:13:56 PM

Goddamn, you're a terrible poster. That is the point of the exercise.

Quote :

"That simple exercise, Newirth told the judges, demonstrates why police detectives need to clearly tell witnesses in criminal cases that the actual culprits might not be in the group of photos a witness is being shown."

8/18/2012 11:32:29 PM

Quote :

"you're a terrible poster."

Anyway, here is another relevant post for this thread.

Change blindness is the phenomenon that occurs when a person viewing a visual scene apparently fails to detect large changes in the scene.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb-gT6vDrmU

8/18/2012 11:41:11 PM

Judges are required to memorize all nuances of American coinage.

Motion to fire and disbar these assholes, immediately.

8/19/2012 1:13:21 AM

whos that chick?

8/19/2012 1:16:01 AM

8/19/2012 3:17:40 AM

^LOL. got me

8/19/2012 12:19:19 PM

I saw the gorilla because I never focus where they tell me to.

8/19/2012 12:31:47 PM

^You ruined it!

[Edited on August 19, 2012 at 6:28 PM. Reason : But it's already partially ruined by posting the video in this context.]

8/19/2012 6:28:06 PM

The last time I saw that video it was a witch

8/21/2012 7:51:24 AM

Human sensory input is imperfect and subjectivity is mostly caused by our brain filling in the blanks/gaps. What is the point of this thread?

8/21/2012 8:47:35 AM

What an immensely pointless and stupid exercise. Anybody who spends any time whatsoever memorizing things like "which directly Abe Lincoln faces", who isn't a coin collector or a trivia league guru, is a fucking moron of the highest order and needs to seriously reassess their priorities.


edit: Oh, nvm, the point of the exercise was to demonstrate flaws in memory and perception, not "herp a derp American judges are so ignorant of truly important American things!"

[Edited on August 21, 2012 at 10:36 AM. Reason : .]

8/21/2012 10:09:08 AM

Poorly made thread is poorly made.

8/21/2012 1:45:03 PM