When an accident is witnessed by four people....why are there four different versions of the same incident?

Answer 1

Perception is the process of acquiring, interpreting, selecting, and organizing sensory information. As we move throughout our lives, we create an internal model of how the world works.

This model maps sensations, such as sight of an accident, to certain preconceptions contained within our unique model. Our model is also constantly evolving, as new information is acquired.

Because our backgrounds and physiology are all different, we experience the interpretation of sensory information in different ways.

Thus four stories about the same accident.

Answer 2

Because each person carries a different perspective with preconceived filters and different ways of dealing with excitement and stressful conditions.

A witness can only see from their location and direction facing the accident; what details they are focusing on (description of the vehicles, description of the drivers, description of what occurred before the accident, description of the accident scene, description of the damage to the vehicles, description of the injured people); when the witness looked up or heard the accident but did not see it; when the witness came upon the scene. Then there are the filters of knowing one of the parties involved (tainted or favorable witness). Also there is excited utterances that either party might say at the accident scene that a witness might overhear as opposed to seeing it themselves. Even education comes into play as some are better at describing what they saw better than others or limited language abilities to describe what occurred.

So location, perspective and visual filters that a witness has will determine what they describe.

+17 yrs of handling insurance claims and interviewing witnesses.

Answer 3

As an accident tend to happen so fast each person only sees very small frames of the event, Some of the witnesses may not even see the event itself! None the less the human brain extrapolates the small amount of information we get and from this generates in our mind a full 'movie' of what just happened. Hence, a full 20 seconds of an accident may be based on just 1 second of what an individual actually saw - hence, the rest is just subconsciously constructed. As a result you will almost certain get a different version from each person of what just happened.

Answer 4

Memory and recall do not occur like videotaping an event and simply replaying the videotape. EVERY aspect of the event is affected by our prior experiences, experiences contemporaneous in time with the event and subsequent events. For more info, see Elizabeth Loftus' body of work on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony. She found even the words used to question someone about a car accident affect recall. Specifically, if the verb in the sentence was changed from "How fast were the cars going when they ______ each other?" was changed from bumped to hit to collided to smashed, the estimates of speed increased. Even more interesting when these same people were asked 2 weeks later whether there was any broken glass at the accident scene, their answers corresponded also with the intensity of the verb and their estimated speed. We like our "memories" to be consistent with one another and may distort recall to accomplish this.

Answer 5

Because they see the world differently. Each person is an individual with an individuals sense of priorities, that is what is important. Someone may look for where children are first, while another look at the make of the cars involved. While another look at the street sign and time of the accident first. Its all relative to who these people are and what they consider to be most important about the accident.

Answer 6

it depends on perception and how the question was asked. if you ask the four people the same question but change one key word like crash into bang or fast into flying. you are going to trigger different emotions and that will change what actually happened. the other reason is people have a lot of prejudices. there was this one story with a group of witnesses about a purse snatching. and there wasn't a black person involved yet some of the witnesses said the person who stole the purse was black. it's a predisposed prejudice that mess with peoples perceptions.

Answer 7

Much like 4 texts of gospel and the crucifixion, there's often lengthy background stories to how each member came together to witness the event. They obviously weren't hanging out beforehand, so they encountered different experiences along the way. Their diction is often quite variable, as though someone was paging through the thesaurus.

Answer 8

Because there all not standing in the same spot. Different people view the world in different ways. 75% of people are color blind... People tend to "BEEF" up there stories.. If you asked those 4 people just after they saw the accident, what they saw. then asked them two days later, the story would be totally different.. People tend to "Make up" things to make them more interesting when they tell others, I think it makes them feel more important for having the better story.....

Answer 9

Because there are four DIFFERENT people witnessing. If we all had the same viewpoint the world would be totally screwed.

Answer 10

No one can remember details with 100% accuracy. The essential parts of the accident will be the most remembered. Also, the trauma of the accident will affect their memory.