Slow-motion videos of a crime can cause jurors to view wrongdoing as intentional, study finds
People who watch slow-motion videos are more likely to believe a wrongdoer acted with intent or premeditation, researchers have found.
The study has implications for criminal trials in which jurors are shown surveillance video of the crime, Ars Technica reports.
“Slow motion video caused participants to feel like the actor had more time to act, even when they knew how much clock time had actually elapsed,” according to an article (PDF) describing the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The researchers showed 489 volunteers a video of an armed robbery in which a store clerk was shot. The volunteers who saw the clip in slow motion, rather than at regular speed, were significantly more likely to believe the robber intended to kill the clerk.
In a second experiment, volunteers were shown a football tackle that involved a banned helmet-to-helmet hit. One group was shown the slow-motion video while the second group was shown the video at regular speed, with one frame frozen. Those who watched the slow-motion video were still more likely to believe the player who knocked helmets acted with intent.
Researchers found that repeated reminders about the slow-motion nature of the clip did not reverse the bias in favor of intent. When test volunteers were shown both slow-motion and regular-speed video of the same event, the bias was reduced but not eliminated.
The authors are Eugene Caruso of the University of Chicago, Zachary Burns of the University of San Francisco, and Benjamin Converse of the University of Virginia.
“In legal proceedings, these judgments of intent can mean the difference between life and death,” they wrote in the article. “Thus, any benefits of video replay should be weighed against its potentially biasing effects.”
Hat tip to the Marshall Project.
