An invisible fight

Researchers say that a policeman who was said to have covered up police brutality was wrongly convicted.

Officer Kenny Conley was chasing a murder suspect at night and even had to climb over a chain-link fence to keep up with the man. At one point during the chase, he ran right past several other officers who were beating up a man they wrongly thought was the murderer.

In court, Conley said that he didn’t see the beating, but he was convicted of obstructing justice and lying in court, and was sentenced to 34 months in prison.

Researchers writing in i-Perception say that Conley could have missed the fight due to ‘inattentional blindness’. This is when our brains are so busy concentrating on one thing that they miss something else that would normally be obvious.

The scientists set up an experiment where students had to chase a researcher around a university at night, counting how many times he touched his head. This was to simulate Conley watching the suspect carefully in case he had a gun.

Even though a staged fight between three students was happening less than 10m away from the path, only a third of volunteers noticed it. Even in the daylight, over 40% of students still missed the fight.

Watch the cool video below to see a famous experiment by the same researchers that illustrates the idea. Then leave us some comments below to let us know how you got on!

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